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COPYRIGHT DEPGSrT. 



DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 




REV. JEROME D. DAVIS, D.D. 



DAVIS 
SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

A BIOGRAPHY OF REV. JEROME D. DAVIS, D.D., LIEUT- 
COLONEL OF VOLUNTEERS AND FOR THIRTY-NINE 
YEARS A MISSIONARY OF THE AMERICAN 
BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS FOR 
FOREIGN MISSIONS IN 
JAPAN 



BY 

J. MERLE DAVIS, M.A., B.D. 

SECRETARY OF THE INTERNATIONAL COMMITTEE OF YOUNG MEN's 
CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATIONS, TOKYO, JAPAN 




THE PILGRIM PRESS 

BOSTON CHICAGO 









Copyright 1916 
By J. MERLE DAVIS 



:/? 



DEC -7-J9I6 



THE PILGRIM PRESS 
BOSTON 



DCI.A445999 



FOREWORD 

Sir Sidney Lee, in his " Principles of Biography," states 
that the test of the worthiness of a life for perpetuation 
is, " did this man render a unique service, which, had he 
not lived, would not have been performed?" 

The test is a difficult one for a son to make for his 
father, and, in this case, has been left to those who knew 
him best as fellow-missionary, as well as to world-wide 
critics of missions. 

Shortly after his death, Dr. Davis' closest colleagues, 
notably, Dr. D. L. Learned and Dr. D. C. Greene, urged 
that his biography should be written. Secretary James L. 
Barton, of the American Board, and Dr. John R. Mott, of 
the International Committee of Young Men's Christian 
Associations, reinforced this opinion with their judgment 
that the story of my father's life should be told, as con- 
stituting an essential link in the development of the King- 
dom of God in Japan, and they have steadily encouraged 
me in my task. 

Special acknowledgment is due to the secretaries of the 
American Board for placing at my disposal its library and 
archives with the thirty-nine years of my father's cor- 
respondence with the Board; to his comrades of the Fifty- 
second Illinois Vol. Inf. regiment, for their generous re- 
sponse in material bearing upon his military life; to his 
college and seminary classmates, for intimate pictures of 
his student life; to his missionary colleagues and Japanese 
friends and pupils, whose characterizations of him in 
varied relationships have placed me permanently in their 
debt; to the International Committee, for its kindness in 
allowing me special facilities for visiting the battle-fields of 
Shiloh and Corinth, and for granting the necessary time 



FOREWORD 

for writing; to Drs. Learned and Cary and Professor 
Lombard, of Kyoto, whose intimate acquaintance with my 
father and his work have rendered them invaluable critics 
and counsellors; and, finally, to my wife, whose steady en- 
couragement and help have been large factors in the suc- 
cessful completion of the work. 

My father's full diary, with valuable collections of letters 
and manuscripts bearing upon the history of the Doshisha, 
the American Board Mission in Japan and the Kumi-ai 
(Congregational) Church, has been freely used as the back- 
bone of the story. 

I have tried to depict my father's part in the dramatic 
history of the early years, by letting him tell his own story 
of the controversies and troublous problems in which he 
not infrequently played a leading part. On the other 
hand, I have, so far as possible, presented an impartial 
statement of facts, irrespective of his prejudices and be- 
liefs, which, with the added light of half a generation, re- 
veal certain vexatious questions of relationship in a juster 
form. 

My father's military record has been given a full treat- 
ment, because of the vital connection which this phase of 
his preparation had with his acceptability to the Japanese 
and with fitting him for meeting his most difficult tasks. 

The work has been accomplished at odd moments, in 
the midst of constant distractions and the press of many 
other duties, but such difficulties as have been met with 
have been far outweighed by the privilege of making a 
detailed study of my father's life, — its sources of power, 
its valleys of defeat and its heights of victory. 

If these pages reveal to others something of the charm 
of his manhood, the strength of his faith, the springs of 
his martial achievement and his spiritual power, so as to 
impel them to similar ideals of service, the highest wish of 
the writer will have been attained. 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I. Ancestry, Birth and Childhood 1 

II. The Forging of the Blade 9 

III. Beloit College 17 

IV. The Long Roll 24 

V. The Battle of Shiloh 32 

VI. On General Sweeny's Staff 50 

VII. The Boy Colonel 73 

VIII. Student Life Again 88 

IX. The Hardest Field 102 

X. First Years in Japan 118 

XI. The Founding of the Doshisha 137 

XII. Moving Mountains into the Sea 159 

XIII. The Upper and Nether Millstones 178 

XIV. The Acorn Splits the Bottle 197 

XV. Reaction 215 

XVI. The Struggle for the Doshisha 239 

XVII. " Reconstruction " 259 

XVIII. Fields White to the Harvest 270 

XIX. Personal Evangelism 284 

XX. The All-around Missionary 293 

XXI. Relationships 310 

XXII. Relationships: His Mission Colleagues 316 

XXIII. Relationships: His Family 325 

XXIV. Last Years 334 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
Rev. Jerome D. Davis, D. D. Frontispiece 

Facing page 

Shiloh Church 32 

J. H. Neesima 138 

The Pacific Hall, Doshisha Girls' School 170 

Theological Class, Kioto, June, 1881 198 

The Science Hall, Doshisha 218 

Dr. Davis at the Grave of Neesima 264 

Rev. Tasuku Harada 342 



THE LIFE OF JEROME DEAN DAVIS 



Chapter I 
THE LIFE OF JEROME DEAN DAVIS 

Ancestry, Birth and Childhood 

THE two families represented in the person of Jerome 
Dean Davis trace their origin to the early days of 
New England history. They migrated from Eng- 
land and Wales in the seventeenth century, John Wood- 
bury settling on the north shore of Massachusetts Bay in 
1623, and Isaac Davis finding his new home on the sand 
dunes of Cape Cod, some seventy years later. 

John Woodbury, the founder of the American family of 
that name, left his father's estate in Somersetshire in 1623, 
as a member of the Dorchester Company, and arrived in 
the summer of the same year upon the Massachusetts 
coast. Three years later he entered the Massachusetts 
Bay Company and helped to found the town of Salem. 
In 1627 he was sent to England as the Envoy of the 
Company to negotiate the Letters Patent which secured 
the new enterprise to the colonists. As a member of 
Governor Endicott's Council, Deputy to the Colonial 
Court and Lord High Constable of the Colony, he enjoyed 
the confidence and esteem of the whole Massachusetts 
Bay Settlement. As official Surveyor to the Colonial 
Government he had charge of the laying out of Lynn, 
Revere and Salem, while parts of Cambridge and the 
campus of Harvard College were staked out by him. In 
recognition of his public services, the town of Salem gave 
him, in 1632, two hundred acres of land in the new parish 
of Beverly, of which he became the first settler. 

John Woodbury's great-grandson, Benjamin, moved to 
Sutton, Massachusetts, in 1734. Here, seventy years later, 

1 



2 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

Jerome Davis' mother was born in the family of Benjamin's 
grandson, Captain John Woodbury, who served with distinc- 
tion in the Sutton regiment through the Revolutionary War. 

The Woodbury family records are full of military, naval 
and political leaders. A Lieutenant Woodbury was an 
aide to General Wolfe before Quebec. Another Woodbury, 
a midshipman on the U. S. S. " Constitution," lost his 
thumb on the wheel of that frigate while steering her into 
action with the British " Guerriere " in the War of 1812. 
A great uncle of Jerome Davis was one of the first gover- 
nors of Vermont, while a cousin of his mother, Senator 
Levi Woodbury, served as Secretary of the Navy under 
President Jackson, was Secretary of the Treasury in 
Van Buren's cabinet, was elected Democratic Governor of 
New Hampshire in 1823, and later served upon the Bench 
of the Supreme Court of the United States. 

The paternal ancestry of Jerome Davis presents an 
interesting contrast to the Woodburys. The courage and 
hardihood of sea-faring men, weather-beaten by genera- 
tions of combat with Cape Cod storms, united with blood 
of sturdy farming stock, was the heritage of the Davis 
family. About the middle of the eighteenth century a 
tide of migration set toward the western frontier of the 
Massachusetts Colony, and, in 1760, Hope Davis left 
Cape Cod with his brother Isaac and began to clear the 
forests and build the first frame houses on the site of the 
modern town of Lee, in the Housatonic Valley. 

The town records show that these brothers took a lead- 
ing part in overcoming the difficulties of the raw Berk- 
shire Hills, and in contributing to the public life of the 
pioneer community that grew up around them. Hope 
Davis was especially interested in the spiritual welfare of 
his town and was chairman of the committee of citizens 
chosen to build the first meeting-house of Lee, at a cost of 
seven hundred pounds. 



THE LIFE OF JEROME DEAN DAVIS 3 

The men of the Berkshire Hills responded eagerly to 
the call of the provincial New England Assembly for 
troops to expel the British from Boston. The Battle of 
Lexington was scarcely fought before the farmer battalions 
of the Colonies began to converge upon Massachusetts 
Bay. Hope Davis' second son, Nathan, Jerome Davis* 
grandfather, was one of the seventeen men of Lee who 
marched in the Berkshire regiment upon Boston. He 
participated in the battles of Bunker Hill, Bennington and 
Saratoga and fought for seven years in the Continental 
Army. 

Jerome's father, Hope, the youngest son in a family of 
ten children, was born in Lee, in 1796. Six years later the 
farm was ruined by the bursting of the mill-dam and 
Nathan Davis removed to the township of Groton, in 
central New York, to begin life again in the midst of the 
wilderness. Here, industry and frugality were rewarded by 
well-tilled fields and a comfortable home. There were few 
educational advantages, but the public school had migrated 
with the pioneers and by steady application Jerome's 
father secured a common school education. When nine- 
teen years old he began to teach and was known as the 
District School teacher for nearly twenty winters. 

Jerome's mother, Brooksy Woodbury, whose ancestry 
we have traced, moved to Groton as a child with the family 
of her older brother, Caleb, and became the second wife of 
Hope Davis. 

Jerome Dean Davis was the third son in a family of 
seven brothers and sisters. In his diary, written in mature 
years, he says, " Our early home was an old-fashioned, 
square, two-storey, brown house in East Groton. Its huge 
chimney in the center, its cheerful fire-places, its well- 
stored cellar, its classic garret, and every door and window 
are all indelibly impressed upon my memory. In the 
pleasant sitting room was a large fire-place, where a great 



4 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

back log could be laid on, which would last all night, 
yielding a cheerful mass of glowing embers in the morning. 
Beside the fire-place was a brick oven where bread, beans 
and meat were baked. Three large rooms above and three 
below all had fire-places and, to crown all, there was the 
huge garret around the chimney, in whose weird recesses 
we children could play by the hour. There were three 
barns where we used to jump in the fragrant hay, while 
the homestead was surrounded by an abundance of fine 
sugar and fruit orchards." 

The busy seasons came and went, each crowded with 
its characteristic and homely tasks, in which each child 
was able to add his small contribution toward the pros- 
perity of the rural world of which he was a part. Though 
the early acceptance of a man's burdens in the struggle 
with the soil sobered and developed Jerome, the delights 
as well as the hard work of the country boy were his. 
He was so fond of Nature and the joys of life in the open, 
of plowtime and harvest, of corn-husking and " sugaring 
off," that the crowded events of seventy years did not dim 
the memories of his childhood. The sugar bush was the 
experience of the year to which the children looked forward 
with greatest delight, when for ten days the entire house- 
hold camped in the maple woods, tending the buckets and 
boiling the sap night and day. 

Jerome's education began at home, where at the age of 
seven he earned his first book, a New Testament, as a 
reward for reading it through. The following winter he 
trudged off through the snow to the old schoolhouse, a 
mile away, took his seat on the grimed and whittled 
benches and received his initiation into the mysteries of 
District School education and the deeper mysteries of 
human nature in the fifty scholars ranged along the hard 
planks about him. At recess on his first day at school the 
boys laid a pitfall for the green youngster, by making 



THE LIFE OF JEROME DEAN DAVIS 5 

spit-balls and throwing them against the ceiling. They 
said that the teacher would not see nor mind such harmless 
fun. Jerome determined to try his hand at the game, but 
was cut short on his first attempt by the teacher, who made 
him stand in deep disgrace before the whole school. 

He was a studious boy, too loyal to school authority 
to join in the pranks of his mates, who waged ceaseless 
warfare on the master; too absorbed in his studies and too 
conscious of the brevity of the winter's freedom from farm 
work to spend much time in play or in loitering to or from 
school. At recess he was often seen with a book, sitting 
in a quiet spot, completely absorbed and content. In 
spite of his quiet habits Jerome was liked by his com- 
rades, since he was full of fun and could enjoy a joke upon 
himself as well as on another. Moreover, when still a 
young boy he gained a reputation for courage by ac- 
cepting a dare to walk at night through the old graveyard, 
which the country boys gave a wide berth after sunset. 

In rural New York, in the 'fifties, each pair of hands 
was an economic asset to the home that few could sacrifice 
to educational ideals. The school term lasted while snow 
lay on the farms and no longer, so that from March until 
December there was little studying for Jerome and his 
brothers. Furthermore, the District School had its limita- 
tions, so that by his thirteenth winter Jerome had gone 
over the elementary courses and was hungry for something 
new. He says, " Just before I was fourteen years old, my 
father bought me an Algebra. It was a difficult one, — 
1 Davies-Bourdon.' Although he had taught school for 
nineteen consecutive winters, my father had never seen an 
Algebra; neither had the teacher of our District School, 
nor any one else within my reach. So I went to the 
schoolhouse every day and dug it out alone, bringing it 
home at night, and when husking corn or paring apples in 
the evening, I dug away at my Algebra. I sometimes spent 



6 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

three days and three nights on a single problem, but by the 
middle of March I had gone through it." 

Jerome was always invincible in spelling. He later at- 
tributed this to the " spelling down " system of his first 
school. He says, " One day I went from the middle to the 
head of the class on the word, ' resurrection,' and never 
forgot how to spell it afterward." Among the treasures 
saved from those early days are two faded little books, 
received as prizes for faithful work, entitled, " The 111- 
Natured Little Boy " and " The Renowned History of 
Richard Whittington and His Cat." The home had a 
few books and one newspaper, The Rural New Yorker, 
which Jerome used to read through from cover to cover, 
advertisements and all. When ten years of age his father 
took him to the District Library of less than one hundred 
books kept in a little square case. The sight of such an 
imposing array of volumes marked an era in the boy's 
life, and the happiness with which he drew his first book, 
with the privilege of taking it home to read, staid with 
him through the years as one of the vivid memories of 
childhood. In this library he formed a life-long friendship 
with the characters of Scott, and through the reading of 
Fremont's "Journals of Exploration in the Far West" 
and other books of travel, his natural fondness for travel 
was stimulated. He often read, or tried to, like Living- 
stone, while at work and was chided for it. But in spite 
of the rigorous discipline of the household, the stern father 
was proud of the boy and it is clear that he furthered 
Jerome's progress in every way that he felt consistent with 
the welfare of the family and farm. 

Jerome's memories of his mother are best told in his own 
words: — "I remember my mother as a tall, slender 
form, with pale face and dark hair and eyes. When about 
seven years old I told her a lie. She did not punish me, 
but took me away to the parlor, all alone, and there talked 



THE LIFE OF JEROME DEAN DAVIS 7 

with me and knelt down with me and asked God to for- 
give me and make me a good boy. This, so far as I 
remember, was my first and last lie. 

11 One scene stands out, however, more vividly than all 
others during those boyhood days. My mother had been 
in poor health for two years, but during the spring after 
my eighth birthday, she grew rapidly worse, and finally, 
brain fever terminated her life at the age of forty-one. I 
well remember when we all stood around her bed, just 
before her death, and her words to me, ' Be a good boy, 
Jerome.' That evening, feeling lonely, I went out to the 
barn where my father was milking, and he said, ' Jerome, 
you have no mother now. I don't know what will be- 
come of my children. I fear they will all be lost.' Then 
came the funeral, and the choir in the high gallery sang 
to the tune of ' Ganges,' the hymn, 

' Lo, on a narrow neck of land 
' Twixt two unbounded seas I stand, 

Yet how insensible. 
A moment's time, a minute's space, 
Removes me to yon heavenly place, 
Or shuts me up in Hell.' 

At the close, my grandmother lifted me up and asked 
me to touch the white face and I was startled at its icy 
coldness." 

We cannot analyze the character of Jerome Davis, with- 
out full recognition of the qualities that his mother gave 
him. 

From his hard-working father he received the shrewd, 
practical judgment, the resourcefulness under new and 
trying conditions, the determination and iron will that had 
marked the Davis family for generations and made it 
typical of the stalwart, indomitable spirit of the American 
pioneer. It was the mother, however, who kindled in her 



8 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

boy those spiritual qualities, which uniting with the stal- 
wart nature of the father, created the soldier missionary of 
later years. From his mother came that sensitiveness to 
the suffering and rights of others, that unusual capacity for 
sympathy and quick intuition, which made him all his life 
a valued counsellor and friend. His mother gave him, too, 
the capacity for religious faith, the appreciation of the 
unseen realities of the spiritual world that glorified his life 
as a missionary. It was his mother to whom he owed the 
artistic side of his nature, the chivalry, ambition and broad 
interest in men and affairs. And, finally, it was the moral 
courage of the Woodbury line of military men, united to 
the physical hardihood of the Davis stock, that fixed in him 
those heroic fighting qualities which characterized him in 
every relationship in which he stood. 



Chapter II 
THE FORGING OF THE BLADE 

THE years following the mother's death were heavy 
years in the Davis home. The father's third mar- 
riage was not a success and the family was gradually 
involved in debt. This period of unhappy home condi- 
tions and family trouble supplied the influences that led to 
Jerome's conversion. He was not yet fourteen, but his 
environment was rapidly maturing him. " Until I was 
thirteen I had no very serious religious impressions. After 
my mother's death I gave up the habit of prayer. That 
fall everything looked dark and the difficulties in our 
home reached a climax. My mind was filled with gloomy 
thoughts and I was impressed with the fact that I could 
find happiness only in Christ. I seemed to hear an inner 
voice saying, ' Unless you become a Christian now, you 
never will.' But I resisted again and again and each time 
the conviction returned, sometimes so vividly that I could 
not sleep. At length, in November, our father took the 
little sister away to live with an aunt and was absent three 
days. It was one of those cold, rainy days that I was 
alone in the barn, husking corn, when these convictions 
came to me with astonishing power; again I resisted and 
again and again they returned, each time stronger than 
before, until I felt that unless I yielded then I should be 
forever lost. At last with a force of will the strongest 
that I had ever put forth, I compelled myself to kneel 
down and ask God to forgive me and Christ to save me. 
This brought relief. Up to this time I had not said a 
word to any one about my feelings, and no one had spoken 
to me for years about being a Christian. When my father 

9 



10 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

returned I told him and he was quite overcome with 
emotion. 

" The next Thursday at the church prayer meeting, I 
timidly stood up and told my determination and asked 
their prayers, but I did not find a settled joy at once. 
I expected a great and instantaneous change, which did 
not come. Then, too, I sometimes yielded to my quick 
temper, when everything would turn dark and I would fear 
that I was not a Christian and after much discouragement 
I would go to Christ again and find peace and pardon. 
Finally, I decided that I would do my duty as a Christian, 
anyway, saved or unsaved, and leave the result with God, 
and then I began to find a settled peace." 

These months of religious struggle were the determining 
experience of his life. In giving himself to God he loyally 
yielded his whole life. If he were God's child, then he must 
work for Him; the relationship was as clear and the obliga- 
tion as binding as in the case of his earthly parent. Every 
fibre of his intense and conscientious nature responded to 
the demands of this new relationship, to which he began to 
adjust himself, and the aim of his life, " How can I make my 
life count for the most for God and for men," was born. 
These words reveal the dynamic power that impelled his 
life for fifty-nine years, and to which, more than all other 
influences, may be attributed his success. 

Before uniting with the Groton Church, Jerome visited 
the pastor, Rev. S. T. Kidder, who talked and prayed with 
him regarding the step he proposed to take. One February 
afternoon, as the spring twilight was deepening on Groton 
Church Hill, a knock came at the door of the room where 
the deacons were met with the pastor to discuss candidates 
for baptism. The door was pushed open and for a moment, 
an awkward, homespun clad figure stood outlined against the 
western sky. With cap held in fingers that trembled, Jerome 
stated that he was a candidate for admission to the Church. 



THE FORGING OF THE BLADE 11 

At that time child members were rare and it was a 
question whether the admission of a boy scarcely in his 
u teens " should be permitted. However, he had reasoned 
out his position and his clear answers to their questionings 
convinced the deacons of the genuineness and grasp of the 
boy's belief. 

" I shall never forget that Spring Sabbath, six months 
after my decision, when I went up alone in the middle 
aisle of the church, with a row of boys in the gallery 
looking down at me, as I publicly assented to the creed 
and entered into covenant with the Church," With the 
row of boys in the gallery he now found less and less in 
common; the family troubles, his natural taste for study 
and his rather extraordinary step of church membership 
tended to isolate him from the lads who overran the 
countryside with their pranks. However, Jerome had the 
capacity for making and keeping friends, and as opportuni- 
ties for play offered themselves he entered heartily into 
them; but more than is the case with the average boy, 
he was able to hold himself steadily to hard mental and 
physical tasks, with eyes fixed upon his chosen goal of 
efficiency and service. This enabled him to endure drudg- 
ery while other boys were playing and loafing. 

He inherited a sensitive, affectionate nature from his 
mother, and after her death was led to hide his emotions 
and to develop a stoicism of face and demeanor that con- 
cealed the currents of feeling that often surged in his heart. 
These years of conflict with environment are responsible 
for the habit of repression, expressed in set jaw and re- 
serve of manner which clung to him and against which he 
struggled in later years. 

In the winter of 1853, matters in the home reached a 
climax where a separation became inevitable. Hope Davis 
sold his farm and turned toward the western frontier, 
as his forefathers had three times done before him, to 



12 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

begin life under more favorable conditions in northern 
Illinois. 

Upon the close of the Blackhawk Indian War, the Fox 
River Valley had been settled by groups of New England 
pioneers, and to one of these new communities in the 
northeastern corner of the state, the family made its way. 
The journey from central New York to northern Illinois 
occupied four days and nights and was Jerome's first 
glimpse of a steam railroad or of the outside world. Of 
it he recorded, " Chicago is a city of 50,000 people and is 
undergoing the state of being lifted out of the mud. The 
sidewalks are constantly going up and down stairs, as 
some buildings are not yet lifted at all and others have 
been raised ten feet." 

Dundee, a village of six hundred inhabitants, was typical 
of the new settlements of the Middle West. A neighborli- 
ness, amounting almost to intimacy, pervaded the com- 
munity. Many of the settlers had been friends in the 
East before migrating, while the hardships of the pioneer, 
the stimulus of overcoming the difficulties of a new country 
and the joy of helping to lay the foundations of a common- 
wealth, shared in alike by every household, tended to 
create an atmosphere charged with patriotism, energy and 
intellectual and physical incentive. The spirit of alertness, 
of achievement and of perseverance was in the air, and 
sluggish must have been the blood of him who failed to 
respond. 

Under such stimulating conditions it did not take the 
newcomers long to feel at home. They soon fitted into an 
honest share of the life of the town; the father cultivated 
his farm: the sons worked at the carpentry trade and 
taught school. The first memory of an old resident of 
Dundee of Jerome Davis was seeing him build a barn 
behind his father's house. He was handy with tools, with a 
knack for construction, and as carpenter, mason's appren- 



THE FORGING OF THE BLADE 13 

tice and bricklayer he found plenty to do. When the farm 
work was heavy he worked in the hay-field or walked 
behind the plow, and for years, in the absence of a house- 
keeper, he did his share of the plain cooking and washing 
for the family. He stood loyally beside his father, to 
whom he gave all his earnings until the farm was paid for. 

There was a small Congregational Church in Dundee, 
with which the family united. Jerome was the only young 
man in the Church, and for years father and son were alone 
among the men of the community in their attendance at 
the weekly prayer-meeting. 

A picture of the motherless family is left by one who 
was associated with him in later years: " Every Sabbath 
I saw a short, dark, somber looking man preceding his 
children into the church. He always sat at the end of the 
pew. They were very grave people. He was a deacon in 
the little church. His prayers were precise and dreary. 
Augusta was a fair, timid girl who was neatly and care- 
fully dressed. Jerome had the air of a humble, timid, 
earnest boy, who at every opportunity offered would rise 
to testify for Christ — hesitant in speech, but so deep, 
tender, reverent, that all loved, admired and honored him. 

When sixteen years old he was chosen Church Clerk, 
and in that capacity had to take part in the trial of the 
minister for attempting to spread Unitarian doctrines in the 
parish. Thus early in his career was Jerome Davis placed 
on the defensive in matters of faith: a forecast of that 
wider arena in which he was to stand in defence of the 
fundamentals of his belief. 

About this time, Jerome's aunt, Mrs. Wilder, or " Aunt 
Mercy," as she was known to the family, nursed him 
through a serious attack of pneumonia, saved his life and 
laid the basis of a life-long affection between them. A 
council of physicians had given him up after a struggle of 
many weeks. Mrs. Wilder, undaunted at the situation, 



14 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

took command, steeped a quantity of smart-weed, packed 
the patient in the pungent mess and in a few hours had 
him conscious and on the road to recovery. 

As in New York, so in Illinois, the winters brought an 
opportunity for study in the village school, which provided 
better facilities than those he had yet enjoyed. A class- 
mate writes, " I remember him as a good boy in school 
and always studious. He later attained the dignity of the 
back seat, the place reserved for the older boys and girls. 
We noticed his methodical ways. He was rather tall and 
slightly built, with a somewhat serious face and reserve of 
manner that did not invite careless advances, but there 
was a merry twinkle in his eye and a brisk manner of 
speech and action that won him friends. He was a trifle 
shy and ill at ease with ladies and certainly did not star 
at the local parties. Determination, reliability and worth 
were written all over him." 

The winter session of the village school was a poor sub- 
stitute for the college preparation which he craved. If he 
was to carry out his great aim of efficient service he must 
have a college training, but loyalty to his father and the 
family required that he place his time and earnings at 
their disposal. 

The dilemma seemed incapable of solution if he were to 
be true to both calls of duty. He faced the situation 
squarely and while continuing to give his wages to his 
father, prepared himself for college by the slow process of 
winter and evening study. " Many a time did I shed 
tears as I saw other young men able to go to Elgin Acad- 
emy, while I had to work. When I was seventeen I 
bought a copy of Virgil with a Latin Grammar, Reader 
and Lexicon, and that winter recited once a week to the 
lady who taught our village school. This was the only 
help that I had in Latin before entering college. The next 
fall I bought some Greek books and began that study, but 



THE FORGING OF THE BLADE 15 

never had the privilege of asking any one a question in 
Greek until I entered college. That same autumn I passed 
an examination to teach a District School during the fol- 
lowing winter. 

11 1 had never been away from home and was lonely. I 
boarded around. The family which sent the largest num- 
ber of children to the school had a steady fare of saleratus 
biscuit, fried pork and potatoes, boiled with the skins on, 
which I ate three times a day for five weeks. I dug away 
at my Latin and Greek, mornings and evenings and during 
the noon hour, when able, and walked home to Dundee 
every Friday evening. 

" I opened school each morning with a brief Bible read- 
ing and prayer. Two weeks before the end of the term 
some of the big boys, several of whom were older than I, 
covered the walls of the school room with caricatures of 
the pious stripling who was trying to teach them. It was 
hard to bear, but the term was so nearly ended that I 
pocketed my feelings and finished without a collision." 

One who was later a comrade with him under Sherman, 
on the " March to the Sea," wrote shortly before Dr. 
Davis' death: " Col. Davis. That name carries me back 
to the little school in Barrington: I a school boy; you the 
teacher. Those were the happiest days of my life, without 
a care or sorrow and all the pranks that boys delight in. 
I well remember the thrashing you gave me for jumping 
on the hay in Bucklin's barn when you had forbidden it. 
That was the only one you ever gave me. The scene 
shifts: I a private and you the Colonel of my regiment. 
I was sick in the field hospital before Atlanta. You came 
to see me. I was not only sick in body, but would have 
given worlds to go home. You cheered me right away by 
your kindness and I was better." 

The next winter Jerome had a school in a more desirable 
neighborhood, and later, when twenty years old, he be- 



16 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

came the master of the Carpentersville School, a mile from 
Dundee, where he taught for one year. 

These four years of school teaching played a happy part 
in his development. They kept him in contact with educa- 
tional ideals, gave opportunities for pursuing his classical 
education, provided an income with which he could aid his 
father, and developed the love of teaching which character- 
ized his later educational work. The mixing with various 
conditions and classes of people and the dealing with human 
nature in varied relationships supplied a hitherto missing 
element in his training. 

There came to the reticent youth during this period a 
knowledge of men and their limitations and a degree of 
self-control that later, under different and trying circum- 
stances, were crystallized into leadership. 



Chapter III 
BELOIT COLLEGE 

MORE than with most men, his twenty-first birth- 
day marked a new era in the life of Jerome Davis. 
Up to this time his earnings had been given to 
his father, who had now paid for the farm and was in 
more comfortable circumstances. Hereafter his time and 
money were his own. He continued to teach until summer 
and in September, 1858, with sixty dollars and a set of 
college text-books as his only possession, he entered the 
freshman class of Lawrence University at Apple ton, 
Wisconsin. 

His first choice had been Beloit College, then the leading 
institution in the Northwest, but the offer of a scholarship 
from a relative at Lawrence University decided him in 
favor of the newer school. 

The two terms he spent at Appleton did not satisfy 
him. The college was very young, not yet fully organized 
and indifferently manned. At the end of the winter term, 
in 1859, he left Lawrence University and went to Beloit. 

Beloit College had been founded twelve years before by 
a group of New England educators, who had with unusual 
success transferred New England scholarship and culture 
to southern Wisconsin. The school had already attracted 
to its faculty that coterie of brilliant scholars and noble 
personalities which has been responsible in such large 
measure for its high educational standards and large out- 
put of efficient graduates. President Chapin and Professors 
Blaisdell, Emerson and Porter were teachers who were not 
satisfied to merely interpret the classics and sciences to 
their pupils, but whose kindling personalities remade men 

17 



18 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

and interpreted life to them upon a grander scale than 
they had yet dreamed. 

The warm greeting given him by President Chapin, on 
arriving in Beloit, and the kindly offices extended to him 
by president and teachers, won Jerome's heart and knit 
him at the outset to the life of the college. He found the 
Beloit requirements higher than those at Lawrence and 
this, with the difficulty of changing courses in mid-year, 
necessitated the period of adjustment. However, he 
caught up with his class the following autumn and struck 
a pace that brought him rapidly to the front. A class- 
mate says of him, " He was ' facile princeps ' in his class 
work. He seemed to have just a little more in him than 
the rest of us to make excellent work, though I think he 
never did it for that reason. But he would work things 
out, and, as they say, ' then some. ' " Professor William 
Porter refers to this same trait, " He was not a brilliant 
student, but had the capacity for intense application 
combined with great thoroughness. He was extremely 
conscientious, almost painfully so, but a student upon 
whom you could absolutely depend to do genuine work. 
His loyalty to the faculty has never been excelled in 
Beloit." He had a natural aptitude for mathematics and 
the time saved in preparing these lessons he put upon the 
classics, in which he had had inadequate preparation, and 
upon which he concentrated all of his energy. 

He received some aid from the Education Society, but 
had to rely upon himself for most of his support. " I 
sawed wood, worked in gardens at ten cents an hour and 
took care of a horse. During the winter I cared for four 
recitation rooms, sweeping and dusting them and carrying 
the coal up and the ashes down two flights of stairs and 
building the fires. To do this I had to get up every morn- 
ing at four o'clock and work until breakfast time." The 
first college exercise, chapel prayers, called the students 



BELOIT COLLEGE 19 

together at six o'clock, after which, while it was still dark, 
11 we Sophomores used to make our way across the un- 
lighted, snow-covered campus to hear Professor Emerson 
interpret Herodotus by the light of a lamp." There was 
no hardship in this program to a boy who had for years 
been longing for such opportunities, and he records of these 
days that they were among the happiest of his life. 

During the spring of his sophomore year he taught two 
hours a day in the preparatory department and in this 
way relieved the strain of physical labor that had hitherto 
absorbed considerable time and strength. 

The religious spirit at Beloit was deep and manifest in 
many ways in the student life as well as in the regulations 
of the school. Jerome entered enthusiastically into the 
Missionary Society and the activities of the Christian 
Union, the forerunner of the Young Men's Christian As- 
sociation, and was usually at the class or college prayer- 
meetings. Chapel prayers were held twice a day and 
each student was required to be present, while attendance 
at church and at the Sabbath afternoon chapel service was 
also expected of all the men. 

In the Sabbath afternoon talks President Chapin spoke 
from his heart and opened new worlds of thought and 
experience to his students. Forty years later Dr. Davis 
wrote, " President Chapin's presence was a benediction to 
me. I remember his Sabbath afternoon sermons in the 
chapel, on the life of Christ, as if they were of yesterday. 
The longer I live, the more I am impressed with the fact 
that men are like composite photographs, largely made by 
the men who influence them during the formative period 
of their lives. I am conscious that President Chapin and 
Professors Emerson, Porter and Blaisdell have moulded 
my life more than all other human influences combined, 
and among these men I owe a large debt of gratitude to 
President Chapin." 



20 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

His oldest brother's conversion, for which he had long 
waited, seemed to him a direct answer to prayer. In the 
letter he now wrote to his father we get the first glimpse 
of his heart: "It must have been joyful news to you to 
hear that Isaac, like the long-lost prodigal, had returned to 
his Father's house and was there seeking the bread of 
eternal life. As I read the news my eyes were wet with 
tears and my heart went up in gratitude to my heavenly 
Father who ordereth all things well. It has strengthened 
and encouraged me." 

It was during this year that the question of life work 
was decided. " For years the conviction had come re- 
peatedly that I ought to preach the Gospel, but I did not 
believe that I was worthy and I did not want to do it. 
I fought against it, but found no rest until I decided to go 
ahead and get such an education as would fit me to preach 
the Gospel, leaving it to the future to decide just what I 
should do. I had made this decision some two years be- 
fore entering college." His first year at Beloit with the 
new vistas of life and service that the stimulating en- 
vironment disclosed to him gave a final answer to this 
question which was never opened again. 

During his second winter at college a class revolution 
occurred which was a severe test of moral fibre. It was the 
custom each year for the sophomores to ride across the 
country, twenty miles, to spend an evening with the senior 
class of the Ladies' Seminary at Rockford, Illinois. The 
usual preparations had been made and the sleighs and 
dinner ordered, when the principal of the Rockford school 
requested of President Chapin that, owing to a special re- 
ligious interest among the students, the party be postponed. 
The Beloit faculty informed the sophomores that they 
could not go to Rockford. At chapel prayers, the day 
before the proposed party, President Chapin made a clear 
statement, explaining the situation and asking for the 



BELOIT COLLEGE 21 

cooperation of the class with the faculty. After chapel an 
indignation meeting was held. " The boys were all excited 
and inflammatory speeches were made. At last, all the 
class, except myself, had pledged themselves to go, if all 
would go. The whole class tried for two hours to make 
me go. They pleaded, they argued and some denounced 
me as a coward and a traitor to the class. I saw the in- 
justice of giving the refusal so late, but I had signed a 
matriculation pledge in which I had promised to obey the 
rules of the college. I felt that I could honorably go only 
by severing my connection with the college, and this would 
probably defeat my plans for an education and for my 
life work. I could not do it. I endured the pressure until 
midnight and then went home and went to bed. The 
next day, because I did not go, three others remained, 
but all the rest of the class went to Rockford. On their 
return the faculty took strong measures and suspended 
them all for six weeks." 

The students of Beloit were soon to face far more mo- 
mentous questions than those presented by college activi- 
ties. With the opening of the year 1861, both North 
and South could no longer avoid the conclusion that the 
issues for which they stood were irreconcilable, that com- 
promise was an impossibility and that the principles which 
either side interpreted as guaranteed them in the Con- 
stitution could only be established by the arbitrament of 
war. Beloit College felt the thrill of the impending con- 
flict. The right of secession, the necessity for coercion, 
the attitude of Seward upon compromise and the condi- 
tions of the coming struggle were discussed in every meet- 
ing, at every table and on each occasion where the men 
came together. The campus was transformed into a drill 
field and the Manual of Arms was included in the daily 
schedule of a majority of the students. 

A company was organized in the college, which Jerome 



22 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

Davis joined. Here another test of mettle came, which 
in the light of his later record is interesting. " After a few 
weeks of drill the man who had trained us and wanted to 
be captain made a long speech, while we stood in line, con- 
cluding with the request that all who would enlist and 
enter the army should take three steps to the front. I 
think I was the only one who remained standing still. 
Again I received the taunts of my fellows, but I did not 
feel that the emergency was then great enough to sacrifice 
preparation for life work and, perhaps, life itself." 

Upon the first call of President Lincoln for 75,000 men, Je- 
rome's older brother, John, who was in business in Minnesota, 
enlisted in the First Minnesota Vol. Inf. Regiment, and in May 
passed within twelve miles of Beloit on his way to the front. 

Jerome was unaware of this at the time and did not see 
him again before his death at Gettysburg, two years later. 
He wrote to his brother, April 18th: " It is hard just now 
to withdraw my mind from the South and the battles 
that will soon be raging there, and I am ready, if there is 
any lack of help, to go down and fight. There is evidently 
a fearful struggle in store for us, but I hope that it will 
be the death of slavery." 

On the margin of a letter to his father written a few 
days later, he says: " I am well and about three times as 
busy as the average student, having a class to hear in 
geometry, one in algebra and another in geography, every 
day, besides other work; an hour drilling with the com- 
pany, one and a half hours preparing for biennial examina- 
tions and, finally, my regular studies. Two companies 
have left town, in one of which were twelve students. 
The most I fear for my country is that some base com- 
promise will be agreed to by the North. I had rather see 
peaceable Secession with all its difficulties, or the coercion 
of arms, with all its horrors, than that we should yield 
another inch to the soul- thirsty traitors," 



BELOIT COLLEGE 23 

The college year drew toward Commencement, and 
though, as yet, the war had made few gaps among the 
students, the echo of arms was already in the air, a heavy 
cloud of suspense hung over the college, and as the stu- 
dents bade each other " Good-bye," none knew what 
September might hold for him or for the nation. 



Chapter IV 
THE LONG ROLL 

THE summer vacation was still young when the de- 
cisive defeat of the Union Army in its first battle at 
Bull Run awoke the North to the appalling con- 
flict which it was facing. Jerome Davis was traveling 
in southern Wisconsin and read in the morning paper of 
President Lincoln's call for three hundred thousand volun- 
teers and Governor Yate's statement that every man in 
Illinois who would enlist was needed. " I felt that that 
call took me." A vivid letter from his brother describing 
his experience at Bull Run, where his regiment had covered 
the Union retreat by defending the batteries of Ricketts 
and Griffin against the sledge-hammer assaults of Stone- 
wall Jackson's Brigade, still further deepened his conviction. 
The last doubt vanished; his country needed men; needed 
him, and he turned his back upon his loved Beloit with a 
clear conscience. He went home to Dundee, found that 
nearly one hundred men had already enlisted in a company 
there, and put his name down to serve for three years or 
for the war. 

It was a serious motive that had impelled him to enter 
the army and serious he seemed to the men of his com- 
pany. A comrade says of him, " I had never met him until 
the day of our enlistment, in the early part of September, 
1861, when we drove in wagons from Dundee to Geneva, 
where the regiment was organized. We were riding in the 
same wagon, and I have never forgotten the impression 
he created in my mind that day; he was so entirely dif- 
ferent from the rollicking young boys, as most of them 
were, yet so very forbearing of their pranks." 

24 



THE LONG ROLL 25 

The new recruits were quartered in the County Fair 
buildings at Geneva, where the initial experiences of mili- 
tary life were burned into Jerome's memory. " I shall 
never forget that first night. Here were two hundred young 
men in one room. Among them were a few very wicked 
men who made night hideous with ribald songs and ob- 
scene stories." It was a relief when the Sibley tents 
arrived and the troops were broken up into groups of six 
and eight men. His reaction upon his environment, his 
first close contact with gross wickedness, was decided. He 
wasted no time in reflecting upon the disagreeable situation, 
and since he could not withdraw from the moral corrup- 
tion of the camp he attempted to clean it up. 

A few entries in his diary show what he was doing when 
not drilling with the company, " Mon., Sept. 30th. Dis- 
tributed thirty Testaments; more wanted. Tues. Oct. 1. 
Purchased fifteen more Testaments, and distributed them; 
Wed. Oct. 2d. Procured ten more Testaments; had 
enough. Thurs., Oct. 3rd. Circulated a pledge against using 
intoxicating liquor and obtained the signatures of almost 
all of Company I that were here. Sunday, Oct. 6th. 
Walked to St. Charles to church in the morning. In the 
afternoon heard Mr. Barbour preach on the grounds. In 
the evening attended Bible class and when looking around 
in the tents for all that would attend, I found an illiterate 
Irishman, alone, reading slowly aloud from one of the 
Testaments I had distributed. I felt richly repaid for all 
they had cost me." 

" Mon. Oct. 7th. Found a liquor bottle behind a post, 
which I hung, with the label, ' Death to the Bottle. ' " 
Such radical temperance methods could not pass un- 
challenged, for the next entry records, — " Came near get- 
ting smashed at table and it is evident there will have to 
be a change in the method of procedure." Whether the, 
1 smashing' referred to the bottle or the reformer is not 



26 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

known, but he had learned a lesson, and no more labelled 
whisky bottles were hung in the camp. 

11 Oct. 13th. Sunday. This afternoon we turned out to 
escort St. Charles Cavalry to the depot, as they started 
for the front. It brought the tears to my eyes to see 
women, with little ones clinging to them and sobbing, kiss 
the sun-burnt cheeks of their husbands, who choked down 
their feelings. Tues. Oct. 15th. Had a fine prayer-meeting 
this evening in which Capt. Brown took part. Wed. 
Oct. 16th. A squad of twenty men left camp this morn- 
ing because they could not get offices to suit them. Sat. 
Oct. 19th. We had dress parade at four-thirty and our 
company carried our regimental flag for the first time and 
when we had done, we gave three cheers for this banner 
under whose folds we have got to march and fight, and, 
probably, some of us to die. In the evening, attended 
Lyceum and had a spirited time. After tattoo I had a 
bath in the brook, unaccompanied, save by the full moon 
overhead and the white frost underfoot and the voice of a 
sentinel who said I would surely, ' catch my death,' but 
I took a ' double-quick ' around the race-course of the 
Fair ground and warmed up, slept well and came out safe." 

" Camp Lyon, Geneva, Oct. 18th, 1861. Dear Sister: — 
We are faring very well and all the boys are rapidly gaining 
flesh. We have singing, dancing, boxing, ball-playing, 
lyceums and prayer-meetings for our amusements. . . . We 
are Company I, the color company of the regiment, and in 
line of battle will be on the right center, the place where 
the fiercest attacks will be made. . . . We will soon have 
our uniforms and expect to move in two weeks to Mis- 
souri. Affectionately yours, Jerome." 

The weeks at Camp Lyon gave ample opportunity for 
the men of the regiment to become acquainted. Com- 
pany I was a fine body of men. Captain Joseph Brown 
was a Christian man. First Sergeant Samuel Anderson 



THE LONG ROLL 27 

had no superior in the company in character or ability. 
He had left Chicago Theological Seminary to enlist in the 
regiment and soon found a devoted friend in Jerome 
Davis. There were nine Christians in the company. Most 
of the men of Company I kept the pledge of temperance 
which they signed at Geneva. A weekly prayer-meeting 
and, much of the time, a Bible class, was kept up for the 
regiment through the four years of the war. For its high 
average of character and the activity of its leading mem- 
bers in the religious interests of the regiment, Company I 
was called the " Moral Company." 

After six weeks in the Geneva barracks, the Fifty-second 
Illinois was transferred to Missouri and crossed from St. 
Louis to St. Joseph on the 8th of December. It was a 
rough experience in cattle trains, through hostile country. 
The diary sketches a vivid panorama of soldiering in the 
South. It shows the men struggling through roads six 
inches deep with mud; and again standing all night under 
arms on the bank of the Missouri River, waiting to be 
ferried across; the loading of the men into stock cars 
just emptied of Kansas hogs; the whiling away of the long 
night hours by the dancing and singing of negro slaves; 
the raw, smoked pork for rations and the water supply for 
the thirsty men, the mud-holes along the railway track. 
" This is the road where so much of the bridge work and 
rolling stock has been destroyed and it is one of the rough- 
est in the country. We rode 150 miles behind an engine 
that was dented with bullets, going many a mile in a 
little over a minute, jerking, swaying and jumping along, 
bruising our heads and sides, standing with difficulty, 
braced and packed though we were. We went through 
safely, but I feel that I have been in more danger than in 
an ordinary battle." 

In St. Joseph the men were preparing for a merry Christ- 
mas with the boxes of good things sent from home, when 



28 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

on Christmas eve, the Fifty-second was ordered back forty 
miles, to guard the bridge at Grindstone Creek. The snow 
was a foot deep; the thermometer stood at five above 
zero. The Quartermaster took three days to make con- 
nections with his supplies, and the regiment had a Christmas 
dinner of corn roasted on the cob. " My chum and I cut 
down small trees, laid up a log house three feet high, put 
our small wedge tent on top, and, with a fireplace on one 
side, we were quite comfortable." 

He was not given to practical joking, but the New Year 
came in with an uproar in camp that some of his com- 
rades still place at Jerome Davis' door. " New Year's 
Eve, I was Corporal of the Guard. Orders were, that any 
sentinel who saw men approaching should fire, and if a 
gun was fired, the camp should be put under arms. I 
had changed the guard at eleven o'clock and we were 
sitting around an open fire, roasting beef on our ramrods. 
It was nearly midnight, and I sat with my watch in hand, 
ready to wish my comrades a ' Happy New Year.' The 
last minute came and just as I was about to speak the 
words, ' Bang,' went a gun. I jumped up yelling, ' Turn 
out, turn out, a gun is fired ! ' The sentinel who had fired 
cried out, ' Don't disturb them, it's nothing but a wolf,' 
and, simultaneously, a dog came yelping in on three legs. 
By this time, the camp was aroused, some out of their 
tents, others looking out, when taking in the situation, 
I wished them all a, ' Happy New Year.' The captain 
found a private trying to get into one end of his panta- 
loons while he got into the other, and he declared he would 
never take them off again while in the vicinity of the 
enemy. The camp thought we had put up the whole 
thing to fool them." 

With the opening of 1862, General H. W. Halleck began 
concentrating all his available forces for an advance upon 
the Confederate line of defence in Kentucky. The Fifty- 



THE LONG ROLL 29 

second Illinois was ordered to Smithland, Ky. On reaching 
St. Joseph, Corporal Davis was ill with chills and fever and 
was sent to the Army Hospital. " The doctor felt my 
pulse and prescribed Dover's Powders; the next day I 
was worse, but was given more Dover's Powders. I had 
some Quinine in my knapsack and began taking regular 
doses and, in three days, subdued the fever. . . . There 
were six of us in the same ward, all getting well from 
different diseases, but the prescription was the same for 
all, — two pills from a common box, once in two hours. 
Each time, I threw mine into the fire. Finally, I went 
out and bought some apples and in a week felt ready to 
join my regiment. The surgeon refused to let me go, and 
so to prove my strength, I walked across the frozen Missouri 
River into Kansas and back. I had longed to touch the 
sacred soil of Kansas, ever since my blood was stirred, in 
1854, with its struggles for freedom." 

Two days later he was put in charge of a squad of 
fifteen convalescents belonging to his regiment, whom he 
took to St. Louis and thence to Cairo by steamer. Here 
he met the new commander of the Fifty-second Illinois. 
Colonel Thomas W. Sweeny had served with a brilliant 
record through the Mexican War, losing his right arm at 
the battle of Churubusco, and had recently come from 
active service in the regular army in the Far West. Jerome 
Davis had occasion to remember his first encounter with 
Colonel Sweeny. On the journey to Smithland, his squad 
was without rations, and he went directly to the erect, 
one-armed officer upon the upper deck, introduced himself 
and made known his errand. Colonel Sweeny turned his 
flashing eyes upon the subaltern, with the sharp command, 
— " Corporal, come to attention, sir! " Startled by the 
fierce reprimand of his superior officer, and utterly con- 
fused, he assumed the position of " parade rest." Again, 
the ringing voice, — " Don't you know what attention is? 



30 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

Come to ATTENTION, sir! ! ! Now get your orders 
from the sergeant here." The rations were secured and the 
lesson in military discipline was never forgotten. 

From the moment that the new colonel took command of 
the Fifty-second, efficiency and discipline were born in the 
volunteer regiment. It was put under the strictest military 
training, and as a result became one of the best units in 
the division. On February 14th, orders came to proceed 
up the Cumberland River to reinforce General U. S. Grant 
who was investing Fort Donaldson. The regiment reached 
Fort Donaldson just twelve hours after its surrender, but 
in time to witness the evacuation of the garrison. It was 
next detailed to guard six steamer loads of Confederate 
prisoners to St. Louis and Chicago. 

Company I, with seventy men, was put in charge of 
1,800 prisoners on the S. S. " Alec Scott." "As we 
steamed down the narrow Cumberland River, night and 
day, I could not but wonder whether seventy Confederates 
could safely guard a load of 1,800 Yankees down the Hud- 
son River, in their own country." Colonel Sweeny was on 
board the, " Alec Scott," with his Color Company. As long 
as they were within sight of southern soil, there was no 
rest, day or night, for the seventy federal guards, but 
when Cairo and the broad Mississippi came in sight, the 
watch was somewhat relaxed. "As we left Cairo the third 
night, everybody was so tired out that the Officer of the 
Day turned the command over to the Officer of the Guard 
and went to bed. As soon as he was out of sight, the 
Officer of the Guard turned everything over to me and 
also went to bed. I made the rounds and managed the 
guards all night! 

" While on guard duty in the Chicago barracks, 
now filled with Confederates, I was amazed, one Sun- 
day morning, to find a prayer-meeting, — ' rebels,' praying 
and singing with fervor. The sight gave me a new 



THE LONG ROLL 31 

idea of the character of the men I was soon to meet in 
battle." J 

The scene shifts again from the northern prison to the 
muddy current of the Tennessee River, where on the 17th 
of March, the regiment joined the divisions of Halleck's 
army on the steamers which bore them to rendezvous 
under Grant at Fort Henry. " The evening we lay at Fort 
Henry will never be forgotten. The warm, balmy air, the 
moonlight on the water and the strains of music from the 
bands of twenty regiments, all playing, at once, the ,most 
stirring, patriotic strains from the decks of as many steam- 
ers, seemed a dream out of fairy-land." That swelling 
martial music, with snare-drum accompaniment, was next 
heard by the Fifty-second just three weeks later, when it 
awakened to the " long roll " and the " rebel yell " at 
Shiloh. 

1 This incident well illustrates the lack of understanding and appreciation of each 
other prevailing at that time between the men of the North and the South. 



Chapter V 
THE BATTLE OF SHILOH 

THE surrender and evacuation of Fort Donaldson, 
which with Fort Henry had formed the center of the 
second line of Confederate defence in the West, 
effectually pierced that line and forced the Southern armies 
to fall back to a third defensive position, extending from 
Memphis on the Mississippi River, along the route of the 
Memphis and Charlestown Railroad, to its intersection at 
Corinth, Mississippi, with the Mobile and Ohio. From 
this point it followed the Tennessee River eastward as far 
at Chattanooga. Driven back into the very center of the 
South the Confederate forces began to concentrate along 
this third defensive line. The navigable Tennessee River 
offered a highway for five hundred miles into the heart of 
the Confederacy, while the junction of Corinth, the gate- 
way to the Gulf States, now became the prize toward which 
General Halleck set his armies in motion. During the early 
spring of 1862, minor operations of both armies were put 
aside and preparations were begun for a struggle to possess 
this strategic point, so vital to the Confederacy. 

The month of March witnessed a steady procession of 
transports plying up the Tennessee River to Pittsburg 
Landing, where the northern divisions began to disembark 
and go into camp preparatory to the assault upon the 
neighboring railroad junction. By the 20th of March, 
General Grant had assembled five divisions of Federal 
troops at Pittsburg Landing, with a sixth under General 
Lew Wallace at Crump's Landing, six miles down the 
river, aggregating some thirty-eight thousand men. General 
Buell, with thirty-seven thousand men, comprising the Army 

32 





I. SHILOH CHURCH. GENERAL SHERMAN S HEADQUARTERS 
II. TENNESSEE RIVER. WHERE GENERAL GRANT LANDED HIS FORCES 



THE BATTLE OF SHILOH 33 

of the Ohio, was marching from Nashville, one hundred and 
thirty miles away, over the heavy roads of central Tennessee. 

On the 24th, the Confederate General, A. Sidney John- 
ston, effected a junction of his twenty thousand men with 
the commands of Beauregard, Polk, Cheatam and Bragg, 
so that by April first, some fifty thousand Confederate 
troops had poured into Corinth and were being organized 
into a powerful army under the master hand of Johnston. 
Johnston's plan was to crush Grant at the river, before 
Buell could arrive, and then in turn destroy the Army of 
the Ohio. With this in view, he pushed forward during the 
3rd, 4th, and 5th of April, through the fearful mud of the 
road leading to Pittsburg Landing. 

The position of the Union Army was favorable for de- 
fense. It lay encamped on the cleared plateaus between 
the woods and ravines of an area measuring some four by 
five miles in extent. With the deep river at its back, it 
was protected on either flank by the bayous of Snake and 
Lick Creeks, whose tributary streams, flowing in opposite 
directions, narrowed the only available point of attack to a 
line about two miles long, to the south and front of the 
Northern army. The region was partly cleared, open fields 
alternating with dense masses of woods and underbrush 
and cut up by ravines now partially flooded by heavy 
rains. About the center of the quadrilaterals described, 
stood the Shiloh meeting-house, at the junction of the road 
from Corinth to the landing, with the road running to 
Purdy on the west. Here, two miles from the river, were 
General Sherman's headquarters, while the commands of 
McClernand and Prentiss stretched off irregularly to the 
southeast. Between this advanced line and the river and a 
mile in the rear, lay the divisions of W. H. L. Wallace and 
Hurlbut, while commissary trains, artillery vans and quarter- 
master's stores were massed along the river bluff and under 
its banks. 



34 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

Upon arrival at Pittsburg Landing, the Fifty-second 
Illinois was assigned to the Third Brigade of the Second 
Division of the Army of the Tennessee, under the command 
of Brigadier General W. H. L. Wallace. It went into 
camp on the edge of a large field, bordering the Savannah 
road that here ran parallel to the river, and about three- 
quarters of a mile from it. Only two of the five divisions 
in camp had ever been in battle, pearly all of the men 
were raw and undisciplined, many of them having received 
their first rifles but a few days before. General Grant, 
who had his headquarters eight miles down the river at 
Savannah, spent the larger part of each day at Pittsburg 
Landing, supervising the disposition of troops and stores 
and perfecting the organization of the army. No breast- 
works or entrenchments were constructed, since the ad- 
vance upon Corinth was to begin in a few days and Grant 
considered it more important to concentrate every energy 
upon drilling. 

By Saturday evening, April 5th, the head of the Con- 
federate column had reached a point only two miles from 
Sherman's pickets, and deploying through the woods to 
right and left, the Southern regiments prepared to bivouac 
for the night. A determined spirit pervaded the whole of 
Johnston's army as they faced what must be to them the 
life and death struggle of the dawn. 

Before resting that night, General Johnston visited each 
brigade and division commander with personal words of 
encouragement and confidence in the issue of the morrow. 
As he mounted his great war horse " Fire-eater," he ex- 
claimed to his staff: — "Gentlemen, we will water our 
horses in the Tennessee River tomorrow night." What 
wonder that with such confidence and magnetic leadership, 
Johnston's army fought with a spirit that nearly made good 
the boast of its idolized chief. The sickle moon and mild 
spring stars looked down that same night upon thirty- 



THE BATTLE OF SHILOH 35 

three thousand Federal soldiers sleeping securely in their 
camps but two miles away, with their commander eight 
miles distant at Savannah. Nor did commander more than 
his men dream of the tense engine of destruction which 
awaited the gray dawn to be launched at them with sur- 
passing fury. 

Sunday, the 6th of April, 1862, dawned with a cloudless 
sky. The air was soft and full of the odor of blossoming 
dogwood, jessamine and violets in the budding woods. 

The catbirds and robins were already busy with their 
nests when the sun rose over the bluff of the Tennessee 
River with a splendor augmented by the rain of the pre- 
ceding day. Company I, Fifty-second Illinois, was up and 
busy with various duties. Some of the boys were at the 
spring, washing out an extra shirt; George Peck, Milo 
Sherman and a half dozen men were down at the river 
enjoying a morning dip; others were busy getting breakfast 
and the scent of strong coffee and fried bacon permeated the 
camp. With his back against a tree and knapsack for a 
desk, a private sat, writing a letter home, while another 
lay on the ground near by reading from a New Testament. 
A Sabbath quiet and peace seemed to brood over the whole 
scene. 

Suddenly, the earth beneath the white Sibley tents 
trembled, and there came the boom of heavy cannon. 
" Sherman must be practicing that new battery of his," 
remarked a corporal at the fire, frying bacon on a bayonet. 
Boom! Boom! came the deep- toned answer out of the south 
forest, followed by the unmistakable staccato of musketry. 
The men stopped short where they were and looked at 
one another. The Testament closed with a snap, the bacon 
burned and curled to a cinder where it fell, the banter of 
the camp ceased and for the space of ten seconds the men 
heard their watches ticking in their blouses, while faint, 
but clear-cut on the still air came the " Yi! Yi!" of the 



36 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

first great Confederate rush that was sweeping Prentiss 
back through his camp. 

Captain Brown came out of his tent in uniform. There 
followed a few quick orders, and the going and coming of 
aides, as the hum of excitement and preparation filled the 
brigade quarters. Presently, from every side pulsed the 
rhythmic rattle and beat of a hundred snare-drums, swelling 
each moment in speed and power, until the woods rever- 
berated with the call to arms. The men heard for the first 
time the " long roll " and fell into line with quickening 
heart-beats. 

Pat Reed, the Color Sergeant of Company I, had been 
sick since the last review of the division, where he had 
sprained his side, and Colonel Sweeny had asked Jerome 
Davis to act as Color Sergeant and to carry the colors of the 
regiment until Reed was well. He was given five picked 
men as his Color Guard, and so it came about that the 
college student and not the big Irishman, held the battle 
flag of the Fifty-second in its first engagement. 

About half-past eight a youthful staff officer, riding a 
foaming horse, dashed up to Colonel Sweeny, and saluting 
cried: — " They're cutting Prentiss and Sherman to pieces, 
Sir; General McClernand requests that you advance your 
brigade, at once, to reinforce his left center." The brigade 
was wheeled to the right and put at the double-quick up 
the Corinth road toward the front. 1 

As the brigade struck the road, it passed a stream of 
stragglers and wounded men moving to the rear. Ambu- 
lances full of wounded went groaning by, while many with 
less serious wounds were walking, with arms and heads 
bandaged. A hard sight this, for unaccustomed nerves, 
but not so hard as the groups of frightened, demoralized 

1 The Third Brigade was placed under the command of Colonel Sweeny and in ad- 
dition to the Fifty-second, was made up of the Seventh, Fiftieth, Fifty-seventh and 
Fifty-eighth Illinois and the Eighth Iowa Infantry regiments. This was the largest 
brigade that entered the Battle of Shiloh, taking into action 4,198 officers and men. 



THE BATTLE OF SHILOH 37 

men, without rifles, without haversacks or canteens, in 
many cases without hats and coats, who were skulking 
through the woods toward the river. Some were still 
running; others exhausted, were sitting beside the road, 
utterly confused, holding their heads in their hands. Every 
now and then the ranks opened to let pass an ammunition 
wagon with its four horses straining through the mud, 
while with a turmoil of oaths, splashing mud, creaking 
harness and pounding caissons, an Ohio battery of light 
artillery went careering to the front, its drivers lashing 
the steaming horses into foam, and the trim gunners hold- 
ing their places on the limber boxes with difficulty. Steadily 
from the front came the swelling roar of cannon and crash 
of small arms, telling their own tale of the deepening 
combat. 

It was now nearing ten o'clock. The Confederates in 
three lines of battle, each comprising about ten thousand 
men, had deployed into a semicircle and had struck with 
great fury all along the front line of Union camps. Pren- 
tiss' raw division, surprised in its tents, had been driven 
back; Sherman's left had been turned with the breaking of 
Hildebrand's Brigade, and thus both McClernand and 
Sherman with their flanks exposed, had been forced back 
to new positions behind the Purdy road. 

Wallace's Third Division was ordered to support Pren- 
tiss, and, together with Hurlbut, occupied a strong position 
at the crest of a thickly wooded slope. Here, into the slight 
hollow of a washed-out road, the men of the Second and 
Third Divisions threw themselves, and here they fought 
for six hours, resisting the tremendous attacks launched 
against them by General Bragg. Between the right of this 
strong position and the left of McClernand's line was a 
dangerous gap into which Hardee was directing a mass of 
Louisiana troops to break the Union center. Sweeny's 
Brigade was thrown into this gap. 



38 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

As the Fifty-second neared the front, it came within 
range of the Confederate batteries, and shells and round 
shot began to fall over and among the men. Trees a foot 
in diameter, lopped off at the base, would fall across the 
road and branches and twigs began to fly in every direc- 
tion. The men could not realize the power of the spent, 
round shot, which seemed to come so slowly and to pass so 
silently to the rear. One man put his foot out to stop a 
rapidly rolling ball and the foot was severed at the ankle. 
Some came ricochetting slowly enough for the men to 
open ranks and let them through, others came so rapidly 
that several men would be killed or wounded. A round 
shot from a thirty-pound Parrott struck a private full in 
the chest, cut him nearly in two, lopped the arm off of 
the man behind, and buried itself in the flank of a great 
roan mare attached to an ammunition wagon. The ani- 
mal's scream shocked the brigade; there was an ugly gap 
in Company D, and work for the regimental surgeon. 
The line closed up and swung forward on the double-quick. 
And so the Fifty-second, the Dundee boys of Company I, 
leading with the regimental colors, wheeled into battle line 
and received its baptism of fire. 

Ordered to lie down on the slope of a hill to the right 
and in support of their division commander, they watched 
for two hours the tremendous fury of the assaults of 
General Bragg upon the Second and Third Divisions. Lying 
in the sunken road and behind a thicket straggling up a 
long slope, the Federal troops could sweep the approach 
with a storm of minie bullets and shells from their bat- 
teries. Here they saw brigade after brigade of hitherto 
victorious Confederates sweep with splendid dash up the 
slope, only to fall back in shattered fragments before the 
blazing line of Federal fire. The Confederates gave this 
awful slope the name of the " Hornet's Nest." 

It was a severe experience for a first battle: two hun- 



THE BATTLE OF SHILOH 39 

dred cannon incessantly booming, shaking the earth and 
throwing a gray pall of smoke, which hung in sulphurous 
masses over the woods. Between and above the concus- 
sions of the great rifled guns, crashed the steady roar of 
small arms playing the treble of the iron orchestra. Shells 
were bursting over and in front of the reclining men. 
There came a blinding flash, an ear-rending detonation, and 
a four-inch shell burst in front of Company I. As the 
smoke cleared away, two boys, one holding his head where 
the scalp was torn away, lay Writhing on the ground. 
Jerome Davis had heard the whistle of hurtling steel, as a 
jagged piece of shell passed a few inches from his head 
and buried itself in the bank behind him. Will Harlow of 
Dundee heard it, too, for it fanned the faces of both men as 
they lay close together. 

The strain of inaction was telling upon the Fifty-second 
reserves, who were witnesses, but not participants in these 
fearful scenes. Every now and then a shot would wound 
or kill one of the men, while the fearful uproar and sights 
of death and heroism had worked the men far past the 
fighting pitch. As yet the reserve column had not fired a 
shot. 

The day swung by the burning hour of noon, and still 
the Confederate attack, like a mighty iron flail, beat with 
the alternate pulsations of a great engine, first on the one 
flank, then the other of the Federal lines. The Confederates 
came in crowding, rhythmic charges, concentrating superior 
numbers at nearly every point of attack. Sherman and 
McClernand, repeatedly outflanked, were steadily forced 
back toward the river. Sherman made one gallant stand 
after another, but many of his raw troops ran like sheep at 
the first charge of an enemy that kept coming on and on, 
unmindful of the gaps in his lines. 

About half -past twelve, McClernand and Sherman 
decided to fall back to a third line of defence along the 



40 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

Savannah Road, about a mile from the river, where their 
left flank would be conterminous with the Third Division 
at the " Hornet's Nest." During this change in position 
of the Union lines, General Hardee sent in Pond with three 
Louisiana regiments and Wharton's Cavalry to break up the 
disordered Federal divisions before their new position could 
be formed. Colonel Sweeny ordered the Fifty-second Illi- 
nois to oppose this Confederate force which was swinging 
in to flank McClernand from the right. As the men got 
under way, they saw a splendid body of cavalry, Wharton's 
Texas Rangers, charging at a trot across an open field — big, 
lean, bronzed, men from the plains, riding with the ease 
of cowboys, scattering before them a broken regiment of 
Wisconsin volunteers, whose German colonel was stoutly 
trying to rally them. On came the victorious Texans, 
their pace increased to a gallop, riding in solid ranks with 
flying banners and flourishing swords. Their commander 
led on a black horse, coming in great bounds at the head of 
his troop. 

" Attention! Battalion! on the double-quick! march!! " 
A line officer roared the command. The Fifty-second 
charged up the hill at the four hundred flashing sabers, 
and at frightfully short range, halted, took deliberate aim 
and fired a volley into the faces of the oncoming squadron. 
Full two hundred bullets found their mark. The carnage 
was awful; half the horses were riderless, as the troop 
wheeled in retreat and dashed back across the field. Here 
and there, riders in falling had caught a foot in the stirrup, 
their bodies striking the ground but once in ten or fifteen 
feet as the horses rushed back on the keen run. The 
tension was broken, the men had tasted blood, had seen 
the enemy in wild retreat, and were eager to be led forward. 

From now on till the end of the day, the regiment 
fought under the command of McClernand and Sherman, 
on the right wing of the Federal battle line. Hitherto it 



THE BATTLE OF SHILOH 41 

had been detached from the brigade, but now joined its 
fellow regiments and, with them, went under the immediate 
command of Colonel Sweeny. With its colonel leading the 
brigade, its lieutenant-colonel absent on leave, and its 
major injured early in the day, all through the confusion 
and carnage of that afternoon, the regiment had no regular 
commander, the company captains acting in concert. 
When the regiment moved, the companies formed on the 
colors in the center of the line, which soon became the 
soul of the regiment and gave the signal for advance or 
retreat. 

The Confederate attack was now concentrated upon the 
right flank of the Union army. Heavy masses of troops 
were moving to the right, in Hardee's effort to turn this 
wing and crumple it up upon the center, as Breckenridge 
was rolling Hurlbut and Stuart up on the left. Johnston's 
plan was to catch the Federal army between these two 
flanking movements and crush or capture it. 

The Fifty-second was ordered to the support of Silver- 
sparre's battery, which from a rounded knoll above Till- 
man Creek was pouring a rapid fire into the enemy, now 
deploying out of the woods to the right. " Defend these 
guns," cried Sweeny. " If the Rebels try to capture them, 
destroy them." He rode rapidly down the line, the reins 
held in his teeth, his only arm grasping the drawn sword; 
an erect, slight figure, with military bearing and com- 
manding eyes. The Illinois men lay down a little to the 
rear of the battery. The four rifled guns were doing splen- 
did work. Company I had never seen a battery in close 
action before. The gunners were serving the pieces, with 
clock-like precision, loading, firing and sponging with speed 
and accuracy. At the discharge of a piece, the gun car- 
riage leapt from the ground, a jet of flame, twice the 
length of the gun, shot from its mouth, and the shell tore 
wide gaps in the oncoming lines of gray. 



42 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

Suddenly, out of a copse, eighty rods to the right, came 
a body of men in four files, on the run. They were dressed 
in blue, sons of wealthy citizens in New Orleans, the 
" Crescent Zouaves," the pride of Pond's Brigade. They 
were so near that the Dundee men could hear the order of 
their officers, as they executed the movement, " on the 
right, by file, into line." Their eyes were on the prize of 
the battery and they had not yet seen the Northern regi- 
ment lying in the grass behind. 

" Steady, men, steady ! " cried Captain Bowen. A click 
of lifting hammers ran down the long blue line in the 
grass; some of the men swore deeply under their breath. 
The handsome regiment of Zouaves, flushed with the ex- 
pected capture, were closing in a semicircle around the 
battery, whose gunners still worked like automatons at the 
pieces; the Rebel color-sergeant, a boy of twenty, was 
urging his men on like a commissioned officer. When 
twenty rods away, up flashed Captain Bowen's sword : — 
" Attention! Battalion! take aim! fire!! " As one man, 
the regiment rose, took deliberate aim, and six hundred 
rifles crashed into the doomed Zouaves. They all dropped 
as if dead. Nearly one half were either killed or so badly 
wounded that they lay where they fell. The remainder 
rolled over and over, behind trees and logs, until they 
reached the Confederate line. 

With a cheer, the Fifty-second charged and gained the 
top of the ridge, which was covered with the dead and 
dying Confederates. Of this charge and the subsequent 
fighting, Corporal Davis' diary records: — "The flag went 
as fast and as far as anybody. I leaped over the bodies 
of several dead men before I halted. The enemy were in 
plain sight, three hundred yards distant, advancing slowly 
to our right. I picked up the gun of a dead man, which 
seemed to be loaded and capped, but it would not go off. 
This was the nearest that I came to firing a gun at 



THE BATTLE OF SHILOH 43 

the enemy during the four years that I was in the 
service. 

" I soon found it was serious business to hold the flag 
in battle. It seemed as if the whole Confederate Army 
were firing at the flag-bearer. I took refuge behind a large 
tree, three feet in diameter, since all the men had been 
ordered to take advantage of any cover they could get. 
But some fifteen men wanted the protection of the same 
tree, standing behind it while loading and stepping out to 
fire. I saw that my flag was drawing the fire of the enemy 
into this squad of men; several were already wounded, 
and I felt I could not remain. So, I left my large tree and 
rushed forward to a little tree, six inches in diameter, and 
stood holding the flag while pressing my shoulder and side 
against this tree. But the excited men behind were firing 
so carelessly that their balls fanned my face, and I feared 
I would be shot in the back; so I returned and stood on 
the open top of the ridge with no protection. I stood there 
about thirty-five minutes. It was an indescribable experi- 
ence. The bullets fell like hail in the gravel at my feet; 
they fanned my face; they pierced my clothes, they slightly 
wounded both legs just below the knee; they riddled the 
flag. I expected even.* second to be killed. 

" After about twenty minutes, I looked back and saw 
another regiment lying down not far away; the color ser- 
geant was also lying down flat, and holding up his flag- 
staff, around which the flag was wound, closely furled. I 
thought it would be a great relief if I could hold the flag 
in that way. Just then, Colonel Sweeny rode up and 
coolly sat on his horse a few paces to my right and rear. 
I turned, marched up to him and saluting asked: — "Col- 
onel, how should the flag be carried in time of battle, 
furled or unfurled? " His black eyes looked at me as if 
they would pierce me through, and shaking his left, his 
only hand at me, he shouted, " Keep them unfurled, Sir, 



44 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

and defend them with your life." I had hardly strength 
enough left to turn and walk back, but I did and stood 
there for fifteen minutes longer, in the midst of the leaden 
hail." 

The afternoon was wearing toward its close. Beauregard, 
in command since the death of Johnston, now concen- 
trated for a supreme effort to crush Sherman and McCler- 
nand at their last stand on the Savannah Road. Leonidas 
Polk, the " Fighting Bishop of the Confederacy," was 
ordered in with his fresh brigades, to reinforce Hardee and 
Pond. Brigade after brigade was sent in, deployed across 
the open and recoiled from the withering Federal fire. 
Colonel Sweeny says: — "The battle here raged furiously, 
the enemy bringing up fresh troops constantly. Having 
no artillery we fought to great disadvantage; nevertheless, 
my men acted with the most determined bravery. Each 
man seemed to feel as if the fate of the day depended upon 
his conduct alone, knowing, as he did, that if we could 
keep the enemy at bay until Buell's troops crossed the 
river, the army would be saved." 

The ridge held by the Federal line was an extremely 
exposed position, but it commanded the approach in front, 
which it swept with an unbroken line of fire. The Con- 
federate brigades were sent in to the attack like gray waves 
beating up the slope out of the woods; stopping for cover 
at fences, broken ground or fallen trees, loading and firing 
and rushing on to the next line of cover. The ridge must 
be carried; Sherman's right w T ing must be broken, or the 
day was lost to the South. 

For a few minutes there came a lull in the attack, an 
ominous quiet before the gathering of the storm. Out of 
the woods across the gentle vale to the south, came a mag- 
nificent line of men — Barksdale's Mississippians and Polk's 
Louisianians ; on they came in four compact columns, two 
full brigades, swinging across the open, with regular rhythm 



THE BATTLE OF SHILOH 45 

and formation, as if on dress parade. The front rank 
leaped the rail fence, without stopping to fire; into the 
dry gully at the foot of the slope and out on its upper side, 
surged the Confederate lines, tall, gaunt, bearded men. The 
Dundee boys could see their slouch hats pulled down over 
their eyes, could count the stars in their blood-red battle 
flags. The Federal line was blazing now and men were 
dropping fast, but still they came. 

Jerome Davis, standing with the battle flag of his regi- 
ment, four out of five of his color guard killed or wounded 
in the grass around him, suddenly realized that he was 
almost alone. The firing of his regiment had slackened. 
Looking around, he could see the boys of the Fifty-second 
dropping back to a second line of defence in the woods 
behind the ridge. Panic had seized them; cover of some 
kind must be had to stop that rolling flood that momen- 
tarily threatened to engulf them. The blood of his fore- 
fathers surged through the young body of the color-bearer 
of the Fifty-second. Was it for this that they had fought 
and strained through the fearful hours of that bloody day; 
for this that he had watched his comrades fall by the 
thousand under the bullets of that gray host; for this that 
his forefathers had risked all, to build up a free and united 
nation; was that glorious flag above him, into which his 
kin had helped to place new stars, to be torn and trampled 
by southern traitors? Not yet, by God's help, not yet! 
The slender form stiffened against the weight of the great 
flag; it whipped slowly back and forth in the faces of the on- 
coming Confederates, and above the song of the "minies" and 
dull roar of battle, high and clear he sang the rally cry of the 
Republic : 

"The Union forever, Hurrah boys! Hurrah! 

Down with the traitors and up with the flag, 

For we'll rally round the flag, boys, 

Rally once again, 

Shouting the battle cry of 'Freedom.' " 



46 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

The wounded men in the grass around the flag, joined in 
the refrain, the company captains took it up, and with a 
rush the Fifty-second came back to the ridge; the gap in 
the line was filled; Mississippi and Louisiana fought stub- 
bornly, but reeled back across the slope to cover, leaving a 
carpet of dead and wounded like autumn leaves on a wind- 
swept road. 

The fighting Confederate bishop had learned a lesson and 
now sent heavy out-flanking columns to left and right. 
Sweeny despatched an orderly to the left and a staff officer 
to the right to see how the fight was progressing. The 
orderly brought word that he could see nothing but the 
enemy and that the brigade would be surrounded in ten 
minutes. The staff officer reported that Sherman had 
fallen back, out of sight, and that the enemy were turning 
the right flank. The ridge must be abandoned. The order 
for retreat was given. Jerome Davis began to march 
slowly backward, holding the flag aloft, with the regiment 
in line of battle a few rods to the rear. Presently numb- 
ness seized him, and with no sense of pain the blood came 
with a rush from his left leg. A minie ball had plowed 
through the thigh close to the body. Staggering to a tree, 
he supported himself and the flag against it, without letting 
the colors fall or touch the ground. A comrade grasped 
the staff, as he sank to the ground, weak with loss of blood. 
That morning, while in line of battle in front of the camp 
he had returned to his tent to get the towel given him by 
his Aunt Mercy Wilder to meet just such an emergency as 
this. To the forethought of the dear old aunt, no less than 
his own presence of mind, he now owed his life a second 
time. With his life-blood ebbing in jets from the great 
hole that had severed the main artery, he kept his head 
and insisted that the bandage be adjusted above the 
wound, and so checked the flow. He tied his handkerchief 
in a hard knot, placed it under the bandage just over the 



THE BATTLE OF SHILOH 47 

artery, and with a small stick which was within reach, in- 
serted in the bandage, twisted it until the flow entirely 
ceased. Then he fainted away. 

Captain Brown, who had run to his assistance, thought 
that he was dying, and seeing the enemy advancing on 
three sides, rejoined his retreating regiment. After falling 
back some distance, the captain looked about and saw that 
the stricken corporal had revived enough to raise his head. 
"Jerome is alive, boys; don't let the Rebs get him," he 
cried, and started back through a rain of bullets in the 
face of the oncoming enemy. Two other Dundee boys, 
Jake Brinkerhof and Milo Sherman, followed their captain 
back through that leaden storm, picked up their uncon- 
scious comrade and carried him in their arms to the rear. 
It had taken the final moment of the battle and apparent 
defeat to produce the high-water mark of heroism in this 
devoted act of friendship. 

Years did not dull the memory of the anguish of the 
following hours. In spite of earnest pleading that he be 
left to die on the field, his comrades carried him to the 
landing and placed him upon one of the hospital ships 
that were rapidly filling with the army of sorely wounded. 

Night was falling. The force of the Condeferate attack 
had beaten itself out upon the heroic resistance of the 
Northern troops. Surprised, routed, disorganized, out- 
numbered and outgeneralled, Grant's army had fought at 
bay, from dawn till dark, and now exhausted but unde- 
feated, with fifteen thousand men in battle line, with their 
backs to the deep river, with a whole brigade in the hands 
of the enemy, with thousands of demoralized deserters 
huddling under the banks of the river, and over ten thou- 
sand of its bravest men dead or wounded, it bivouacked for 
the night upon its arms and awaited the issue of the mor- 
row. With the arrival of Buell's Corps during the night, 
Beauregard's opportunity of crushing the two Federal 



48 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

armies, separately, vanished, and the sunset of the second 
day's battle saw the Confederate columns in full retreat 
upon Corinth. 

The long fight for life began on the deck of the river 
steamer, where for three days and nights, without blankets, 
without food, without surgical attention, in drenching rains 
and burning sun, the stricken heroes lay and suffered and 
wondered why their lives had been spared for such misery 
as this. Through those terrible hours, Jerome Davis had 
kept fast hold of the stick which had stopped the hem- 
orrhage of his wound, and though the leg was swollen to 
nearly twice its normal size, the wound began to heal. The 
diary throws a brighter light on the picture. It tells of a 
comrade, Simpson, wounded in his arm, who could carry 
water, while Davis with the use of his arms could dress 
wounds; the orange given him by another wounded friend, 
the only food of the three days, and the wonderful nectar 
of its juice; the German captain who donated dry flannel 
underclothes to the drenched and chilled sufferer; the joy 
of being found by his company mates, who wrapped him 
in warm blankets, carried him to camp and put him to bed 
in his own tent; the tears of happiness shed, as they loaded 
him with comforts and kindnesses, and nursed him back to 
life. 

Here, he first learned of the death of his friend and 
company mate, Sergeant Samuel Anderson, who was shot 
through the breast, while kneeling to fire, during that ter- 
rible retreat from the ridge. 

After a week in camp, there followed the tedious voyage 
on the boiler deck of a river steamer, when, with hundreds 
of other wounded, he was slowly carried toward the north. 
Arrived at St. Louis, he was placed on a Chicago and Alton 
train and, after two more days, the home in Dundee was 
entered, and three weeks after the battle, his first real medi- 
cal attention was received. For six weeks, the young sol- 



THE BATTLE OF SHILOH 49 

dier hovered between life and death, but his splendid 
constitution, with the tender nursing of his devoted Aunt 
Mercy, won the long combat, and toward the end of June 
he began to sit up for a few minutes each day. 



Chapter VI 
ON GENERAL SWEENY'S STAFF 

JULY brought returning strength, and as soon as he 
was able to walk with crutches, he decided to visit his 
brothers in Homer, New York. After a month in the 
East, he was put on recruiting service in Dundee and in Sep- 
tember went to Beloit to get his books and effects which were 
stored there. Here a temptation awaited him. President 
Chapin suggested that now, after his severe wound and a year's 
service in the army, his duty to his country was fulfilled, 
and it would be entirely fitting for him to go back to col- 
lege and finish his education. The argument was plaus- 
ible- it accorded with his own desires; the college year 
would open in five days. Under the oaks on the beautiful 
campus, he fought it out. The lure of academic seclusion, 
the spell of the college library, the thirst for knowledge, 
were strong upon him. And yet, far to the south, sleeping 
under the stars, marching over endless roads, meeting, per- 
haps, those same waves of oncoming gray, were the Dundee 
boys, the boys of Company I. No faltering now His 
country needed him still. He packed his effects, shipped 
them to Dundee, and applied to be sent back to his regi- 

m At Springfield, 111., he reported at the Adjutant-General's 
office The clerk in charge, on hearing his name and com- 
pany number, handed him an official document. It was a 
commission as Second Lieutenant in Company I, Fifty- 
second Illinois Volunteer Infantry Regiment, signed by 
the Quarter-master-general of the U. S. Army and marked, 
--For meritorious conduct at the Battle of Pittsburg 
Landing." Of the receipt of the commission and the try- 

50 



ON GENERAL SWEENY'S STAFF 51 

ing experience to which it introduced him, he wrote, — " I 
could hardly believe my eyes nor understand how it had 
come about, but, of course, accepted the commission, and as 
I could not purchase an officer's outfit at the front, bought 
uniform, sword, etc., and was at once put in charge of 125 
men who were to join their regiments at Corinth. We 
reached St. Louis at eleven o'clock at night, but as there 
was a large ball in progress, not an officer was to be found 
at Headquarters. So I told the men to take care of them- 
selves until morning and meet me at the landing. I took 
fifteen of the men of my own regiment and tried to find a 
place to stay. We soon came to the Planter's Hotel. I 
asked the clerk what he would charge for lodging us. He 
named a very high price. I asked him if he charged sol- 
diers such a price as that. He replied that they did not 
care to entertain soldiers. I then went to the door, marched 
my men in, and we spread out blankets on the marble floor 
of the parlor and slept till morning. The proprietor looked 
daggers at us the next morning, but said nothing; neither 
did I raise the question of paying anything again. 

" We reached Corinth at night. At roll-call I was sur- 
prised that only five or six of my company came and spoke 
to me. They were all friends when I went away. After 
roll-call the first sergeant took my arm and we went down 
to the tent of the first lieutenant, and he soon told me 
what was the matter. The company had elected First 
Sergeant Bailey as second lieutenant. Captain Brown re- 
quested Colonel Sweeny to send to Governor Yates for a 
commission for Sergeant Bailey. The colonel asked him 
whom he would recommend as first sergeant in place of Ser- 
geant Bailey. He replied that he would recommend Ser- 
geant Davis, for the position. Sweeny exclaimed, ' Davis, 
Davis, is that man in your company? I shall promote 
that man, Sir, shall promote that man!' And promote 
him he did, though all the field officers of the regiment 



52 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

sent a petition to the Governor to commission Sergeant 
Bailey. This was the greatest trial I had ever met. I 
tried to resign, but could not. So I accepted the inevi- 
table and began my work with the company. After a few 
days when they found out that I had really nothing to do 
with the matter, they all became friendly again." 

Soon after Lieutenant Davis' return to his regiment, the 
first lieutenant of his company was detailed on staff duty 
at brigade headquarters, and while the captain was sick, 
the command of the company fell upon him. Corinth was 
surrounded by Confederate guerilla bands and many at- 
tempts were made to intercept them. Company I found 
that it was discouraging business for infantry to chase 
mounted troopers. December 9th, 1862, the regiment 
started on an expedition into Alabama to disperse a force 
of cavalry under Colonel Roddy. The men were loaded 
into wagons, twelve to a team. At Big Bear Creek the 
enemy made a determined stand. 

The Fifty-second was ordered down from the wagons and 
formed in battle line to charge the enemy. " When I 
heard the sharp crack of rifles, it brought back all the 
horrors of Shiloh, and for a few minutes completely un- 
nerved me. It took all my will power to move at all. It 
seemed as if I could not stand. But I gathered myself 
together, formed my company and we started on. My 
fear lasted, perhaps, for five minutes and then passed 
away forever. I never had such a sensation again in the 
nineteen battles and skirmishes of the war." Company I 
was thrown forward as skirmishers. A battery of four guns 
stood sharply defined against the setting sun on the oppo- 
site bank of the river. With several supporting regiments 
it poured its fire full in the face of the advancing lines of 
blue. The enemy were retiring toward the bridge under 
cover of the shells. " The gunners had the range and as 
we crossed the open field, a half mile wide, to the river, 



ON GENERAL SWEENY'S STAFF 53 

it seemed as if a shell or solid shot passed between every 
two men in the line." The Confederates made good their 
escape, setting fire to the bridge and effectually ending 
the pursuit. 

A night's ride in the wagons, a day's march in the rain, 
and the brigade was halted to rest. Sweeny ordered the 
Dundee Company to picket the camp and Lieutenant 
Davis to place the sentinels. No sleep and scant rations 
for forty-eight hours had completely exhausted the men, 
and for the first and only time in his military experience 
he found his sentinels asleep at their posts. " I spent the 
night in going the rounds of the pickets and waking up the 
men, but hadn't the heart to report them. We marched 
the whole distance to Bear Creek, twenty miles, that night, 
the last half only halting ten minutes. As there were not 
teams enough I waded the river. I was pretty well satis- 
fied with my day's work; having marched twenty-five 
miles, run five, fought a battle, and waded a river; pretty 
good for a ' wounded man.' I was in command of the 
company and they all did well, Davenport, Dock, Carnaby 
and the rest. We brought back forty bales of cotton and 
forty prisoners." 

The winter was occupied with dismal marches into the 
surrounding country to intercept the movements of Con- 
federate cavalry. These forced marches seldom accom- 
plished anything but the exhaustion of the men. Now it 
was a hurried night march to intercept General Forrest in 
an attack on Jackson, Tenn.; again, an effort to save a 
depot of military stores from a cavalry raid. Sometimes 
the tired men caught sight of the retreating squadrons of 
the enemy; more often they arrived just too late and 
marched back to Corinth again. Sweeny's brigade was 
dubbed " The Foot Cavalry," from the distances it cov- 
ered. December 19th, the brigade started at ten o'clock 
at night, marched all night and all the next day and into 



54 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

the second night, with only one halt for breakfast and five 
minute halts every three hours. Of those forty miles 
Lieutenant Davis' memory was a nightmare. It was one 
of his first long marches after the healing of his wound, 
from which he was still limping. " The last ten miles 
I marched in intense agony. The neck and back muscles 
were especially excruciating. When we halted for a few 
minutes I would lie down on the ground and on getting up 
again it seemed as if I could hear those muscles snap." It 
was some satisfaction to know that this fearful march 
served to turn Forrest northwards, where he was defeated 
by the Jackson forces. 

On these long night expeditions he marched many miles 
asleep: " Falling asleep until awakened by stumbling on 
some rough hub, then dozing off again as the exhausted 
line of men lurched forward over the muddy road." The 
rains of the later winter made the roads next to impassable. 
A six mule team could draw but 200 feet of lumber through 
the mire. The men were constantly falling down, to rise 
again with difficulty, but their spirit overcame such condi- 
tions and found an outlet in song and banter. As they 
floundered through the night, the boys kept calling from 
one end of the command to the other in the language of 
the river men: " Quarter less twain" ; " Three feet"; "No 
bottom," etc. 

The brigade was ordered to winter in Corinth, and to 
build houses from the white oak shakes, which they split 
and made into clapboards. Fifteen mert were quartered in 
each cabin. Early in the winter Lieutentant Davis was 
detailed to drill the non-commissioned officers of the regi- 
ment in the Manual of Arms. This meant intense applica- 
tion on the " Manual." He threw himself at the new task 
with the same intensity that marked his boyhood on- 
slaughts upon Algebra and had the satisfaction, a few 
months later, of having his company take the prize 



ON GENERAL SWEENY'S STAFF 55 

in a competitive drill of the fifty companies of his 
brigade. 

Late in February, Dr. Bettelheim, who had worked as a 
missionary in the Loo Choo Islands in 1846, gave a series 
of lectures on " Japan." Lieutenant Davis heard the first 
of these lectures with deep interest. Keen was his regret 
when the regiment marched way the following day to 
Jacinto. The lecture to the crowding soldiers in the Bap- 
tist Church of Corinth was a link in the chain of influences 
that resulted in his sailing to Japan, a missionary, nine 
years later. 

These long winter evenings in Corinth brought more 
time for study than ever came again while in the army. 
He sent for his college text-books, and read philosophy, 
Plato's Gorgias, Guizot's History of Civilization, the Greek 
Testament and Hardee's Tactics. He records reading most 
of " Demosthenes de Corona " and the reviewing of several 
Latin authors, and so far as the movements of his regi- 
ment permitted, he read regularly The American Mis- 
sionary, The New York Independent and the Chi- 
cago Tribune. He wrote daily entries, throughout the 
four years of the war, in a pocket diary of standard size 
which his sister supplied him. 

One of the first appointments made by General Sweeny, 
after promotion to the command of his brigade, was to detail 
Lieutenant Davis as Acting Assistant Inspector General 
upon his staff. The promotion came as a disappointment 
to him for he preferred to remain with his own com- 
pany. His first day at Staff Headquarters proved a harder 
test than Shiloh: " One of the first things I did after 
reporting for duty was to get out an order for whiskey 
toddy for a treat all around, which I politely declined. 
Then at dinner, General Sweeny sent for some beer, which I 
also declined. After dinner he offered me a cigar, and 
when I declined that, too, he said, with some warmth, 



56 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

1 Well, where do you expect to die when you go to!' 
But this was the last of it, I was never ridiculed or inter- 
fered with for my Christian principles." The general and 
his staff were genial, large-hearted, manly men. One of 
them afterwards said, referring to this event and Lieuten- 
ant Davis' strict principles: " His religion was genuine. 
He never forced it on others, but was absolutely true to 
his convictions. His life backed up his religion, so that 
every one honored him for it." 

Of this experience, he wrote: " Except that Christ is 
with me, I am very lonely. All the other members of the 
Staff smoke, drink, and play cards, while I, alone by my- 
self, read or work at office business." He set himself with 
characteristic intensity to master the details of his new 
position. He wrote of the comparative advantages of the 
appointment, " I am not going to mourn about it. I am 
not compelled to drink liquor nor help pay for much, nor 
to smoke cigars, play cards or swear, and I think as many 
times before I spend a quarter as ever. I have a greater 
chance to discipline my mind, learn military science and 
human nature, and am probably doing my country more 
good than I should in the company. And, then, it is an 
honorable position, but this is the least to be considered. 
As far as danger is concerned, in an engagement I shall be 
an Aide de Camp for the General, and mounted officers are 
in more danger than men on foot." His self-imposed re- 
tirement from the staff social activities made it possible 
for him to acquire that thorough familiarity with the 
technicalities of his work which resulted in the marked 
confidence placed in him by his general. He seems to have 
merited the praise of a fellow officer, of this period, — 
" Lieutenant Davis was a splendid soldier. He was abso- 
lutely reliable, dependable through and through!" 

His new duties included the daily inspection of each camp 
in the brigade, covering the quality of food, its manner of 



ON GENERAL SWEENY'S STAFF 57 

cooking and serving, the sanitary condition of the grounds, 
the efficiency of guard patrol, etc. Once a month came a 
formal inspection of each brigade in line of battle, when 
every man's arms, accoutrements and dress were exam- 
ined. Each month a minute report had to be made to the 
Inspector General of the Army. Occasionally, food stores 
were condemned and destroyed. Sometimes it was a lot 
of hams that were so lively that, as the boys said, — "Men 
must be stationed with fixed bayonets to keep them from 
running away." The work pressed severely through the 
hot summer months, Lieutenant Davis being constantly at 
his office desk, or in and out of the saddle in different parts 
of the brigade camp. " Corinth, June 20th. Dear sister: — 
I have been very busy this week inspecting the four regi- 
ments in the brigade, one each day. ... It seemed queer 
to have a regiment drawn up in line, and for me to go 
around and inspect their guns, knapsacks, etc., followed by 
a colonel, a captain and other officers, listening to the criti- 
cism of a second lieutenant." 

The monotony was varied by a visit from the evangelists, 
Revs. K. A. Burnell and G. W. Wainright, who held 
meetings with the soldiers. Their companionship and 
spiritual counsel was a blessing to many, and, especially, 
to Lieutenant Davis, who felt the need of such work for 
the men of his command. " Corinth, August. 17th, 1863. 
Dear sister: — Mr. Wainright preached a grand sermon 
to our regiment this afternoon. It seems good to hear a 
sermon that is a sermon again. If our chaplaincy were 
vacant we should hardly let him go back." 

He was active during this same period in distributing 
reading matter in his brigade and in establishing a small, 
portable library for his own regiment. This contained 
eighty volumes and became a part of the outfit of one of 
the hospital ambulances. For two and a half years this 
library followed the Fifty-second on its marches, until 



58 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

it was abandoned near the close of the Carolina campaign. 
The books were loaned to the men of the whole regiment 
and were literally read to pieces. " La Grange, Sept. 
5th. Dear Sister: — It is the close of a very busy week. 
. . . Three long reports based on inspection and over fifty 
papers pertaining to the inspection of old property in the 
brigade . . . have passed through my office today. It 
would be very pleasant to come home, but I am doing too 
much good here to be spared. A great deal of filth has 
been removed from the camps, rations have been im- 
proved and various abuses checked. Then there is a wide 
field here for spiritual w T ork. I love to distribute reading 
matter to the soldiers, who are eager to receive it, and to 
talk to them of the claims of the Great Captain; but oh, 
how poorly prepared I am to do my duty ! " 

In the latter part of August the brigade was distrib- 
uted along the line of the Memphis and Charleston Rail- 
road, with headquarters at La Grange, Tenn. Shortly 
after he was appointed Acting Assistant Inspector General 
of the Third Division, now commanded by General Sweeny. 
This greatly increased his responsibilities and pressure of 
work, for it required constant riding between the camps of 
the different commands. " Mon., 7th, Inspected com- 
pany B. Went to Grisson's Bridge and inspected the de- 
tachment there, and returned to Germantown and in- 
spected the Fifty-second Illinois. Tues., 8th. Go to La 
Fayette and inspect the detachment there, back to Collier- 
ville and finish the inspection of the Sixty-sixth Indiana. 
Very hot week. Wed., 7th. Go to Moscow and inspect 
the Seventh Iowa. Thurs., 10th. Return to La Grange 
and inspect the Eighteenth 111., and attend prayer- 
meeting there in the evening. Fri., 11th. Inspect the 
Fourteenth Indiana Battery and Second Iowa Infantry. 

"La Grange, Tenn., Sept. 17. Dear Father: — I have 
made two applications to be sent back to the company, 



ON GENERAL SWEENY'S STAFF 59 

but the General has assigned me to duty here as Acting 
Assistant Inspector General of the division. Every feeling 
in my nature opposes the holding a position which should 
be filled by, at least, a captain, but as, if I were to be hung 
and had made every effort in my power to save myself, I 
should meet my fate cheerfully, so now, feeling that I have 
done all in my power to avert the evil destiny which seems 
to hang over me, I shall enter upon the duties of my office 
cheerfully. I shall have the oversight of the whole divi- 
sion : — three brigades of infantry and two of cavalry. The 
last ten days have been the busiest yet experienced. . . . 
I had planned to have last Sunday to rest and attend 
church in the forenoon. After dinner I had settled down 
to read in my room, when up came a clerk saying that 
Colonel Wilson, the Inspector General of the Department 
of the Tennessee, wished to see me. I found Captain Cat- 
lin, U. S. A., the Corps Inspector there, also, and he wished 
me to accompany them on a tour of inspection, so ordering 
the ambulance, we rode until night. . . . We occupy a 
splendid residence in a lovely spot for our headquarters. 
Some ladies with a few officers are playing the piano in the 
front parlor, while I am writing, but I prefer to visit at 
home, to associating with any ladies I have met in the 
South yet. The refined ones are all ' Secesh,' and the Union 
ones are only about half civilized." 

On July 27th, Lieutenant Davis heard of the death of 
his brother at the Battle of Gettysburg. John Davis was 
killed in the historic charge of the First Minnesota, which 
was sacrificed on the second day of the battle by General 
Hancock, while reforming his broken lines on Cemetery 
Ridge. Longstreet sent in two Confederate brigades to 
crush Hancock before Meade could reinforce him. To 
gain time, the First Minnesota was ordered in a counter- 
charge to temporarily check the enemy. Of the 262 men 
who followed Colonel Colville on this forlorn hope, forty- 



60 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

seven came back, but the 215 heroes who fell sold their 
lives so dearly that ten priceless minutes were gained for 
their Corps Commander, and Hancock and the pivot of the 
Union position was saved. John Davis was buried in a 
trench with eighteen others, on the field near the spot 
where he fell. After the close of the war Colonel Davis 
visited Gettysburg and had one of the nineteen nameless 
stones marked with his brother's name and regimental 
numbers. 

John Davis was a strong, resourceful soldier. He had 
passed unscathed through the active Virginia campaigns of 
1861—63, having taken part in nearly all of the fighting of 
the Army of the Potomac, from Bull Run to Gettysburg. 
There was a strong affection between the two brothers 
that the three years of common service for their country 
had deepened. In one of the last letters that Lieutenant 
Davis received from his brother, John Davis wrote: — 
" For my own part, I feel like going cheerfully forward, 
trusting in an all-wise Providence for guidance and protec- 
tion, and believing that the cause of freedom demands 
whatever sacrifice may be in our power to undergo." 

On July 27th, Jerome Davis wrote his father: — "I 
have not heard from John (since the Battle of Gettysburg), 
and I fear he has not escaped this time. Don't work too 
hard. Yours truly, Jerome." The following day came the 
expected news. The first words which met his eye in the 
home letter told the story: " Killed in action about sunset, 
July 2nd, at Gettysburg, in a charge made by our regi- 
ment." He wrote his sister: — "I have for a long time 
felt that if I had to lose a friend or die myself while this 
war lasted, I wanted the Grim Reaper to come upon the 
battlefield; 'In a charge which our regiment made.' It is 
glorious to die thus; to be a martyr for his own country." 
There is no word of regret, no trace of bitterness, but a 
conviction that the Great Cause was worthy the gift of his 



ON GENERAL SWEENY'S STAFF 61 

brother's life, together with a shade of exultation that John 
had died the glorious death of a hero. 

The circumstances of his brother's death made a lasting 
impression on Jerome Davis. From this point on we find 
in his military experience a deeper note of patriotism, a 
quicker recognition that his life was not his own, that he, 
with all his men, was standing in the very presence of the 
God of Battles, and might momentarily be summoned 
before Him. His daily life became exalted above the 
drudgery of the camp routine, and his life slogan, " For 
God and for men," was now interpreted, " for God and 
Fatherland." If the day's work did not bring chances for 
winning distinction on the field of glory, it, at least, gave 
every opportunity to serve his general faithfully and to 
make his reports and inspections with care and regularity. 
The hundreds of soldiers of nearly every rank with whom he 
came into personal contact presented the greatest possible 
chance for making his life count for men. 

Almost every surviving member of Company I has, after 
fifty years' interval, spoken of the way in which Lieutenant 
Davis fathered the men of his command. Their welfare 
was always uppermost in his mind. " Sept. 16th, 1863. 
Springfield. Dear Augusta: — I did not tell my reasons for 
not coming back but I will. If I had left the boys here 
alone, they would not have got along near as well. They 
were strangers to camp life, and would have drawn no 
clothes, and had nothing but a blanket to sleep on. I am 
not living for myself. If I were, I never should have 
joined the army." 

In spite of the strict military discipline in the brigade, 
which forbade commissioned officers associating with non- 
commissioned officers or privates, he could not forget that 
he had risen from the ranks; that he was one of the boys. 
He had marched and fought with them in the line; he 
had shared their wretched fare, the camp sickness, and 



62 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

privation and toil, and now, neither a commission nor 
association with superior officers or the comparative luxury 
of life at brigade headquarters, could cool his sympathies 
with the men who carried the rifles. u Corinth, Jan. 5, 
Dear Father: — We have been on half rations since Dec. 
20th and do not know when supplies will reach us. I am 
well and flourishing, if my weight, which is 190 lbs., is any 
criterion. The boys have not suffered very much yet for 
food, as I got 100 lbs. of meal for them and they had a 
little extra rations and we have driven in all the sheep and 
cattle we could find, so that we have had full rations of 
fresh meat, or ' fresh bones,' more properly, as the animals 
all look like the last run of shad." 

From the diary of a private in Company I: — " One day 
after Lieutenant Davis was mounted as an officer on Gen- 
eral Sweeny's Staff, we had marching orders and I had to 
march with my old wound still unhealed. ... I had fallen 
behind, and was limping along when Lieutenant Davis 
overtook me. General Sweeny with the rest of his staff 
had passed on to the front. Knowing of my wound and 
the difficulty with which I was marching, Jerome Davis 
swung from his saddle and handed me the reins, saying, 
' Here, Milo, it hurts, doesn't it? Jump into this saddle 
and rest a little. I want to run ahead and chat with the 
Company I boys, and when the bugle calls, " halt," just 
ride till you come to Company I, and I will be there to 
take the horse.' " 

"At Pulaski, Tenn., a noted confederate spy, who was 
brought in and placed under an insufficient guard, had 
escaped. General Sweeny ordered the arrest and court- 
marshal of the two sentinels who had guarded the door. 
The case excited a great deal of attention in the brigade, 
as it was said that the authorities were to make an example 
of the men and inflict full punishment. Though they were 
two of the best men in my company they were arrested and 



ON GENERAL SWEENY'S STAFF 63 

put in the chain gang. I went to the Judge Advocate of 
the division and asked that the men be brought to trial as 
soon as possible and I appeared as their counsel. We did 
not call any witnesses in the defense, cross-questioning of 
the witnesses of the prosecution was sufficient, and the 
men were acquitted." 

It was not only in cases where life and death were the 
issue that Lieutenant Davis fought for his men. He had 
a soft spot in his heart for their pranks and horse-play. 
He knew his company to a man, and could not bear to see 
them abused. One dark night in Mississippi, when the 
signal, " taps," had sounded, a tallow dip kept burning 
in one of the tents of Company I. Presently, a gruff 
voice was heard at the door, " Lights out, light out here." 
The men in the tent thought they recognized the voice of a 
comrade having some sport at their expense. Quick as a 
flash, Joe Watts sang out, in a loud and cheerful voice, 

11 Oh, go to , you can't fool us!" Before the words 

were out of his mouth, in stepped the Officer of the Guard 
with a detail of men, with fixed bayonets, demanding to 
know who had " insulted the dignity of a superior officer." 
Poor Joe, who owned up at once, was hustled into his 
clothes, and marched off to the guardhouse. His friends 
went in a body to Lieutenant Davis' tent, and told him 
what had happened. In five minutes he was at the guard- 
house demanding the release of " one of my boys arrested 
by mistake," and Joe was put back to bed in his own tent 
by his jubilant mates. 

On Sunday, Oct. 11th, General Sherman and his staff 
were nearly cut off at Collierville by a detachment of Con- 
federates in a sharp fight in which over fifty of Sweeny's 
brigade were killed and wounded. Lieutenant Davis was 
at Germantown at the time, and took the first outgoing 
train to meet his brigade. Passing through Collierville, 
the dead of both sides were still lying unburied by the 



64 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

track, where they had fallen the previous day. Reaching 
La Grange, he was given a despatch by General Carr, 
commander of the division, to carry to General Sweeny. 
It was a dangerous errand; twenty-five miles through the 
enemy's country. With two mounted orderlies, as an 
escort, he started at noon on the twelfth. All three were 
well mounted and had orders to ride hard. About mid- 
way, as they topped a long incline, they came face to face 
with a squad of Confederate cavalry climbing the slope 
toward them. The Northern men had already been seen; 
a moment's hesitation and they were lost. Lieutenant 
Davis drew his sword, rose in his stirrups, and with a wild 
hurrah, as if summoning their command from behind the 
hill, the three men put spurs directly at the Southern horse- 
men. The charge made up in impetuosity what it lacked 
in volume, and supposing the little band of riders to be an 
outpost of a following force, the gray horsemen wheeled, 
put spurs to their horses and disappeared down a side road, 
to the relief of the despatch riders, who saw no more of the 
enemy before handing General Sweeny the papers at sun- 
down. 

Jerome Davis was dissatisfied at being separated from 
his company. Repeatedly, he tried to return to the line 
and share the life of the men with whom he had enlisted. 
General Sweeny frankly said that he could not spare him 
from his staff. Finally, as a result of an earnest appeal 
to be relieved, which enumerated eight distinct reasons for 
his retirement, he was returned to his company, of which 
he now took command. 

The Second Brigade spent the winter of '63— '64 in Pu- 
laski, Tenn. The Fifty-second Illinois was quartered in 
the Giles County College buildings, where Lieutenant 
Davis mended a cooking-range and built an oven for his 
company. The winter passed quietly. There were few 
expeditions and the command settled into the routine of 



ON GENERAL SWEENY'S STAFF 65 

guard duty and camp life. Lieutenant Davis was with his 
company and had ample opportunity for contributing to 
the life of his men. He wrote to his sister of the Young 
Men's Christian Association organized in the regiment: 
11 Our association prospers. We have just fitted up a nice 
room in a residence near by. The absence of the chaplain 
leaves me president of the Association. Wanser is secre- 
tary. Fourteen of our company are already members. . . . 
I feel a great responsibility as a follower of Christ to per- 
form my duty for Him here in the army faithfully. A great 
field is open for work, and I pray that myself and all 
others here, who have named His name, may be faithful. 
I wish we had a good chaplain. We have some very inter- 
esting meetings. Have just started a Bible Class; lesson 
next Sunday, last half of chapter one, Genesis." Pulaski, 
April 12. " They have put me in charge of a school for 
non-commissioned officers again, so I shall have no more 
guard or forage duty, but as I have to go on all the drills 
and dress parades, it keeps me pretty busy. From 8 to 10 
o'clock, squad drill and company drill; 10 to 12, battalion 
drill; 1 to 3 P. M., non-commissioned officers' school; 3 to 4, 
dress parade. Then with seventy men to look after and 
with having to satisfy all their questions and wants, it 
pretty much fills up the pieces between." 

At Pulaski came the veteran reinlistment of the regi- 
ments. The order had come from the War Department 
that any regiment or company, three-fourths of which 
would reinlist for three years more, on the expiration of 
the first three years, should have thirty days furlough at 
home. Company I would not reinlist until Lieutenant 
Davis would promise that he would remain with them. 
His conviction was, that after nine months, when his three 
years of enlistment would terminate, the war might have 
reached a stage where he could honorably resign and con- 
tinue his college course. " Many of the men are anxious 



66 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

that I should recruit a company for the veteran service, 
and I presume if I did, that most of them would reinlist. 
I shall not reinlist again, however, with the present pros- 
pects of the speedy close of the war. I think that the 
fighting will be over in another year, and no inducements 
could be offered to keep me in the service after that." 
After two days, during which the men pled with him to 
remain, he saw that he was keeping his company from re- 
inlisting, and reluctantly consented to join them. The 
month of January, 1864, was spent on furlough at his home 
in Dundee. 

He suffered much with rheumatism and dysentery during 
the early spring and he was barely able to advance with 
his command, when, on April 27th, the order came for the 
brigade to join General Sherman's army at Chattanooga. 
The Fifty-second was now attached to the Sixteenth Army 
Corps which formed the right wing of Sherman's army and 
participated in the tremendous strategical movements of 
the Chattanooga and Atlanta campaigns. Sherman's tac- 
tics were not to charge the enemy's works in front, but 
to outflank him and make him fall back, or fight outside 
his works. Again and again, the 16th Corps was hurled 
from one end of the federal line to the other, often march- 
ing twenty-five miles in the night, as Sherman, "cracking 
the whip," would double his column on itself and suddenly 
appear so far to right or left of Johnston as to compel him 
to fall back or be attacked in the rear. 

Though suffering with rheumatism so that it was painful 
for him to step over a log, Lieutenant Davis now entered 
upon one of the most severe and long continued campaigns 
of the war. The diary here speaks for itself: — "May 5th. 
We marched fifteen miles to Hudson's Mill and encamped. 
My company were on picket. . . . Sherman swung our 
corps around to the right, through Snake Creek Gap to 
outflank the enemy. Then for three days it rained nearly 



ON GENERAL SWEENY'S STAFF 67 

all the time, and we were moved from place to place, 
marching all day and working at night on earth works and 
abattis. Three more days were spent in maneuvering and 
skirmishing with the enemy, and on the morning of the 
15th, our brigade crossed the river in. canvas-covered pon- 
toon boats, under cover of a furious artillery fire over our 
heads, which kept the enemy back. We were no sooner 
across and formed in line of battle, than a force of the 
enemy's infantry appeared and charged us, but finding that 
we were too strong for them, they retired. The pontoon 
bridge was laid and that night the whole division crossed. 
May 16th, we marched to Rome's cross roads, and in that 
engagement our regiment supported Walker's battery." 

The following two weeks were days of tremendous march- 
ing and ceaseless toil for the Sixteenth Army Corps. Strong 
men, who had for two years stood every hardship without 
complaint, now fell out of the ranks, broken down. The 
hospitals were full to overflowing. Men began to see that 
battles were won by the side that had the strongest legs 
and deepest lungs. We read, "May 17th, we marched 
nearly all night, and continued the next day, reaching 
Kingston the third day. From this point, all surplus bag- 
gage and tents were sent back to Chattanooga. May 24th, 
25th, 26th we marched on in the rain toward Dallas, which 
we reached the evening of the 26th, and my company went 
on guard at division headquarters. Skirmishing began at 
daylight on the 27th, and then for five days and nights 
there was constant skirmishing and fighting, night and day, 
so that we had almost no sleep. On some of those nights 
there occurred the most furious cannonading, when sixty to 
eighty great guns were rapidly firing, lighting up the dark- 
ness, and ten thousand rifles were discharged as a chorus. 
When not fighting, we were working on earthworks, some- 
times the whole command, and sometimes by reliefs, night 
and day." 



68 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

"May 30th, '64. Dear Sister:— ... On the 27th 
skirmishing continued all day. At half-past six the regi- 
ment formed in line of battle, the Sixty-sixth Indiana in 
front of us. Company F of our regiment lost one man 
killed and two wounded. The Sixty-sixth lost three killed 
and twenty wounded. At dark we commenced building 
breast- works, each company building its own front. First 
the brush is cleared away, then logs cut and piled about 
three feet high, then a ditch four feet wide and eighteen 
inches deep is dug and the dirt thrown over the logs. At 
midnight it was done and we lay down. May 28th: 
Brisk skirmishing all day. At half-past four the rebels 
made a desperate charge upon the front line, which lasted 
twenty minutes, and were repulsed with fearful loss. The 
front line is about 50 rods in front of us and the rebel 
bullets came against our embankment very briskly. Con- 
tinued charges were made away to our left in the evening. 
Just as we had quietly lain down for the night an order 
came for us to be ready to move to the left, as the Rebels 
were charging there. We were hardly in line when a des- 
perate charge was made on our front. It lasted nearly an 
hour and the sight was terribly grand. It was dark, ex- 
cept for the stars, and looking at the line in front of us, it 
was one continual blaze of fire, while the discharge of the 
guns of the batteries to the right and left of us was accom- 
panied by sheets of flame. They made seven different 
charges during the night, but were repulsed, keeping us up 
all night. . . . We have hardtack and pork and bacon with 
sugar and coffee. I have lived on this diet for a month 
now, and have not been inside of any shelter during that 
time and was never hungrier or heartier in my life. Boys 
are all well except Conrad and Russell, who were sent to 
the hospital." 

Kennesaw Mt. "June 20th, Dear Sister: — Very rainy. 
Very heavy cannonading all day. Two men were severely 



ON GENERAL SWEENY'S STAFF 69 

wounded while the regiment was on skirmish line. Rebel 
rifle pits were fifteen to twenty rods distant, and some of 
the way in plain view. Rather close work, but we came 
out all right. At dark we made a bargain with the rebs 
not to fire unless one or the other commenced advancing. 
And then we talked back and forth an hour or two very 
familiarly. An Alabama regiment was in front of our 
right and they were very bitter. The Tennessee regiment 
on our left front was much less so." 

On June 28th, while the Fifty-second 111. was on the 
picket line under the base of Kennesaw Mountain, a detail 
came from the War Department at Washington, appointing 
Jerome Davis as Assistant Commissary of Musters for the 
division. He writes, " I had had one experience of staff 
duty and did not wish another. I wished to remain with 
my company and they wished me to remain. I worked 
hard the next two days trying to get relieved from this 
detail." He had given his word to his company that if 
they would reinlist, he would remain with them. The new 
detail not only was distasteful, but conflicted with this 
compact with his men. 

On June 29th, 1864, he wrote a petition to headquarters, 
begging to be relieved from the appointment, to which he 
secured the endorsement of his colonel, the general of the 
brigade and of General Sweeny of the division. He took 
it in person to Corps Headquarters. Lieutenant Davis 
was a sorry looking staff officer. He had been marching 
and sleeping on the ground for two months and his rough 
army blouse and heavy shoes were stained by the mud 
and exposure of picket duty and heavy Georgia roads. The 
Adjutant General of the Sixteenth Corps read the petition 
and looked the bedraggled lieutenant from head to foot. 

"■ You're a d d fool," said he, " to want to get relieved 

of such a detail as this. It's a position which any lieuten- 
ant in the division would be mighty glad to get. I advise 



70 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

you, young man, to go back and begin your duties at 
once." Remonstrance was useless, and with a heavy heart 
the new assistant commissary of musters of the Second 
Division again began his work at General Sweeny's head- 
quarters. 

His predecessor, an officer of the regular army, had been 
dissipated and extremely negligent of his work. Large 
piles of faulty muster rolls were in the office, which had 
been sent back from Washington to be done over again. 
This unwelcome bequest, in addition to the regular work of 
the division, the mustering in and out of all officers who 
were promoted, and of all men whose terms of service had 
expired, put a tremendous pressure of work on him. While 
the division was marching or fighting he acted as aide to 
his general; otherwise, he worked from seven in the morn- 
ing until ten at night at his desk, often with the shells of 
the enemy whizzing over his tent. One entry from this 
period records, — " Today mustered out some men who had 
escaped from Andersonville prison ; — the merest shadows 
of men, nearly as black as negroes, only skin and bones; 
hardly enough left of some of them to muster out." 

His first day of active staff duty was typical of those not 
spent at the desk. " July 3rd, moved to headquarters. 
Had a broken-down horse assigned me and equipments of 
the same stripe. The rebels were throwing large shells, 
about as large as a two gallon jar and the same shape 
over our headquarters when I arrived. They made a sorry 
noise. At nine P.M. tents were down and everything 
ready to move. Very dark. 11 P.M. moved out onto 
the road. Midnight, had not moved 80 rods. Artillery 
stuck in a mudhole. 1 A.M. Having become lost from 
the Staff among the train in the darkness, I found I was 
ahead, and sat by a fire waiting for the General to come 
up. 3 A.M. command halted; lay down on my rubber 
blanket. 4 A.M. Awoke to hear news that the Rebels 



ON GENERAL SWEENY'S STAFF 71 

had evacuated the Mountain (Kennesaw). 5.30, Got a 
cup of coffee from a company near by. 6 A. M. our flag 
moved onto the higher Kennesaw. 8.00, Moved out, 
passed the Fifteenth Corps swinging to the left. 9.00, was 
stationed in the road to keep it clear. Prayer meeting was 
going on to the right in the woods. 12 M. Baited my 
horse in a sugar cane field, and ate some crumbs of hard 
bread. 2 P. M. Rested at General Schofield's head- 
quarters. 2.45. Waited beside the road, while the rest of 
the staff had a toddy at General Crittenden's headquarters. 
Watched our brigade pass by, hungry, hot and weary. 
5.30, halted, had supper and received orders to move to 
the front. 7.00 P. M. division formed and commenced 
earthworks. 9.00 P. M. Have been carrying despatches 
all the time and now drink a cup of coffee and lie down." 

The Second Division was bearing the brunt of the turn- 
ing movement that forced Johnston out of the Kennesaw 
district and pushed him back upon Atlanta. On July 4th, 
the Sixteenth Corps celebrated by capturing a long line of 
confederate earthworks near Kennesaw. " 5.30, awoke 
and heard cannon to the left. Division ordered forward. 
Learned that Thomas was pressing the enemy down the 
railroad line. 12 M. had dinner and moved to the front. 
Rode round the lines and visited the Dundee boys. 5.00 
P. M., went around the lines again with despatches. The 
Fifty-second was moved out to strengthen the skirmish line 
and drive in the rebel skirmishers, and I was sent out with 
Major Campbell to report to the general when the line 
was ready to charge. The line went in with a yell, through 
a thick chapparal, 200 yards wide and across an open field 
and were in the rebel trenches all right. The rebels evacu- 
ated to our right and we scattered our men to fill them. 
I galloped back and reported to General Sweeny and asked 
for reinforcements. The Fifty-second and Twelfth Illinois 
advanced and seized the main rebel works. 7.30 P. M. I 



72 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

am sitting with the General in the rear of our lines. The 
rebels have opened a battery and are very saucy. One 
cannon ball has just rolled down to our right close by, 
scaring a negro so that he double quicked over the hill to 
the rear out of sight. Now a shell explodes directly behind 
us, and soon another almost over us, cutting the bushes 
all around in pieces. I have been through many dangers 
today, but God has preserved me." 

During all the crowded days of this strenuous life, 
Lieutenant Davis did not forget the group of friends at 
home. Beside regular letters to his father and sister, he 
occasionally wrote to the children of the Dundee Sunday 
School, in whom he had a special interest. He systema- 
tized his work at headquarters and became master of a 
situation that had swamped two men before him, and was 
able to find time to think of those whom special bonds of 
comradeship and affection bound to him. He never forgot 
the fact that two of his boys had saved his life by carrying 
him off Shiloh field. One of these comrades says: — "One 
July evening while lying on the hard floor of a rough hos- 
pital in Marietta, Ga., sick and weak from my wound, 
just as the twilight deepened, Lieutenant Davis came and 
knelt by my side. He took me by the hand and with 
kindly smile and cordial greeting tried to comfort and cheer 
me in my loneliness. He remained chatting with me until 
quite dark. How in the world he ever found me there I 
will not attempt to solve, but find me he did, and the 
pleasure of that meeting lingers as a fragrant memory. 
Finally, he said, 'Well, Milo, I must be going now; keep 
up a good heart and don't give up.' Then grasping my 
hand, he said, ' Good-bye,' and was gone. After he had 
gone, I got a soldier to bring me a light to see what he 
had pressed into my hand. It was a ten dollar greenback." 



Chapter VII 
THE BOY COLONEL 

DURING July and August, Sherman's army closed in 
upon Atlanta, steadily tightening its cordon of en- 
trenchments around the doomed city. General Hood, 
now in command of the defending forces, precipitated a series 
of furious battles in his effort to drive off the invading army, 
which put nearly half his men out of action. He hurled his 
worn-out forces in solid masses against the strong Federal 
entrenchments with the result that Altanta soon fell into 
the hands of Sherman. 

From August 11th to 19th, the boys of the Fifty-second 
were in the front line of earthworks, within a few hundred 
yards of the Confederate entrenchments. The men were 
obliged to sleep and eat and remain constantly in the 
trenches, under a continuous fire. No one could go to 
the front or the rear without endangering his life, for the 
rebel sharp-shooters made a practice of picking off every 
Union soldier whose head appeared within a radius of a mile. 
The strain was fearful. " We had difficulty in pitching our 
headquarters tents where they would not be shelled, and 
I worked at my desk with shells occasionally flying over 
my head and bursting uncommonly near. I made a prac- 
tice of going out to the front line every afternoon to visit 
my company. On those walks if I kept in the open, the 
bullets would soon ' zip, zip ' around my head : I had to 
walk under cover of bushes to be at all safe." 

However, incidents in lighter vein served to relieve the 
strain that pressed men's nerves to the breaking point. 
" One day as I was riding during a furious cannonade in 
the rear of our division, carrying a despatch across a long 

73 



74 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

slope, a darky suddenly appeared, coming from the front 
on the keen run. He passed me and ran on, as for life. 
Soon I saw that a nearly spent cannon ball was rolling 
after him, bounding along down the decline. The negro 
would glance over his shoulder at the oncoming ball and 
then push on. I watched them till both were out of sight." 

Lieutenant Davis was absent from the Third Division on 
July 20th in the battle of Atlanta, in which the Army 
of the Tennessee lost its beloved commander, General 
McPherson. His pride in the brilliant part played by his 
command could not compensate for the chagrin of being 
out of such a fight. Kingston, Ga., July 26th. " Dear 
Sister : — There has been a great fight in which General 
McPherson was killed. The two divisions of our corps lost 
1,140 men killed and wounded. I can't understand why I 
was taken away from the company. I don't know but I 
was making an idol of it. I wanted so much to be with it 
if we were in battle, to care for the boys and look after a 
good many of the little things for the wounded and dying 
that, I fear, no one else will think of. It is one of the 
darkest Providences I ever experienced, but I suppose it is 
for the best in some way." 

One of the compensations of life at division headquarters 
was the privilege which he often enjoyed of attending the 
Sabbath services at the headquarters of General Howard, 
Commander-in-chief of the Army of the Tennessee. A 
military band was usually in attendance, and the quiet, 
reverent attention of the officers and men and the spirit 
of the whole service was a genuine inspiration. 

On September first General Hood evacuated Atlanta. 
The Third Division was ordered to intercept the retreating 
enemy, but they had escaped, and the tired troops marched 
to Eastport, Ga. Here while the men of the line rested, 
the Assistant Commissary of Musters was extremely busy, 
working far into the night. It was here that he was ap- 



THE BOY COLONEL 75 

pointed Assistant Commissary of Musters for the Sixteenth 
Army Corps, and here, with the pressure of the papers of 
fifty regiments passing through his office, added to the 
many preceding months of strain upon his writing arm, 
that his hand-writing broke down into the almost illegible 
scrawl that became the despair of his friends. 

On the first of October, his division was assigned to the 
Fifteenth Corps and was sent to Rome, Ga., to protect 
the line of railroad in Sherman's rear. He wrote to his 
sister: — " I have been trying to get back to my company 
for the last week but have been checkmated at every move. 
They tell me that they have too much confidence in my 
abilities to relieve me. Very flattering, but rather an un- 
satisfactory way to be rewarded for doing your duty." 

After the disastrous repulse of General French at Alla- 
toona Pass, Hood withdrew to the West and for a month 
the two armies lay facing each other, Sherman watching 
Hood and wondering what he would do. " Sherman re- 
marked at our headquarters one day, that if General John- 
ston were in command of the army he should know what to 

expect, but that Hood was such a d n fool that he 

didn't know what he would do. Sherman wanted him to 
be fool enough to cross the Tennessee River, which he did, 
thus allowing Sherman to carry out his ' March to the 
Sea,' which burst the shell of the Confederacy and was the 
beginning of the end. Sherman despatched one corps to 
Nashville, put General Thomas in command there and at 
once made preparations for the celebrated march." 

The first three years of service of the veterans of the 
Fifty-second Illinois were now completed, and the men were 
entitled to reorganize under officers of their own selection. 
In the elections held by the reinlisted men, Lieutenant Davis 
was elected Captain of Company I. Among an old file of 
army records, the writer found a manuscript yellow with 
age. No mention of this paper is made in Colonel Davis' 



76 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

full record of the war, no mention, so far as I have been 
able to discover, was ever made to his friends. 

41 Camp of the 52nd III. Vol. Inf. 
Lieut. J. D. Davis, 

Co. I, 52nd Infantry, Vol. 
Lieutenant: — 

Our term of service having nearly expired, and the time 
having arrived when we as fellow soldiers who have fought 
our country's battles side by side, must part, we the 
undersigned commissioned officers of the Fifty-second Illi- 
nois Volunteer Infantry, desire to express our admiration 
of you for your many brave deeds and gallant acts in de- 
fense of your country's honor. 

On the battle field you have proved yourself to be a_ 
brave and gallant officer, fully competent to command 
under any and all circumstances. 

In camp and on the march you have been kind, courteous 
and cheerful, and through all the long and tedious cam- 
paigns through which we have passed, you have per- 
formed your duties promptly and manfully. And in the 
parting with you we part with one of our country's bravest 
sons and noblest defenders." 

Signed by nineteen of the commissioned officers of his 
regiment, many of whom were aware of the coming pro- 
motion which was to be at their own expense, this bears 
witness to the admiration which his fellow-officers held for 
one of their number who was destined for the highest posi- 
tion that the command could bestow. 

October 17 th the new company officers met to elect the 
field officers of the regiment. A committee had previously 
called upon Captain Davis with the request that he should 
promise to accept the position of commander of the regi- 
ment. He replied that he was not worthy of the office 



THE BOY COLONEL 77 

and would have to decline. On a second call the committee 
reported that a majority wished his appointment and that 
they insisted upon his acceptance. He finally said that if a 
unanimous wish was expressed he would consider it. In 
the first ballot Captain Davis received a majority of votes 
and after a few more ballots, he was unanimously elected 
Lieutenant-Colonel of the regiment. The Fifty-Second 
was so depleted in numbers that it could not meet the 
requirements in qualifying for a Colonel, and was com- 
manded to the end of the war by its Lieutenant-Colonel, 
who received his brevet, as Colonel of Volunteers, just 
before being mustered out of the army. 

There were two factors that determined the choice of the 
veterans of the Fifty-second Illinois of their new comman- 
der. The first was the personal affection which existed in 
the ranks for him. This was a power more potent than dis- 
cipline to impel the men of his line. But in addition to 
this personal relationship, the conviction of his military 
ability was deep-seated in the regiment. The various 
promotions which had proved him in a wide range of 
service were common talk among the men. Though they 
recalled the manner in which the colors had been carried 
at Shiloh, every veteran knew that courage was not the 
first quality of a superior officer. They remembered that 
after his first year of military experience he had made his 
company the most efficient unit in the crack regiment of 
the brigade. They had seen General Sweeny pass several 
ranking officers to put upon the second lieutenant the in- 
spection and standardization of a whole division, a post 
usually filled by a West Pointer. Again, when the exact- 
ing requirements of the Division Muster Office had put 
two incumbents out of commission, they had been called 
upon to give up this same Lieutenant to bring order out 
of confusion. Finally, the commander of the Sixteenth 
Army Corps had requested the War Department to ap- 



78 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

point Lieutenant Davis as Assistant Commissary of Mus- 
ters for the fifty regiments of his corps. Now that the 
time had come when a commander was to be elected from 
their own number, the veterans of the Fifty-second chose 
the man who knew more about the art of war than any 
other in the regiment. A comrade expressed the general 
opinion regarding him, " After he took command there was 
a feeling of quiet confidence on our leader. He was safe 
and sane and we knew we would be well looked after." 

In letters to his father and sister he breaks through the 
customary reserve and shows some of the inner emotion 
that came with the honor that had been conferred upon 
him. " Rome, Ga., Oct. 23rd. Dear Father and Sister: — 
I am feeling lonely tonight and I want to write. It being 
Sunday I have but little to do and time to think. Then, 
too, Colonel Bowen, Captain Thompson and five other 
officers and forty-four men start for home in the morning, 
and this makes me think of home. If I could start home 
tomorrow, feeling that my country needed my services no 
longer, I should be happier than I ever was in my life. 
But I cannot feel so, for here is a company of re-enlisted 
veterans and recruits, the largest in the regiment, who 
came into the service with the express understanding that 
I should stay with them. The other day I was unanimously 
elected captain, and now the whole regiment has spoken 
that they want me for commander. I feel that I can do 
more good as a patriot and Christian here, even though 
only a few months of life is given me, than I could in 
many years in civil life. God seems to be leading me in 
this path and He will do all things well. It is lonely to 
think of you, but in such a gigantic struggle as the pres- 
ent, the welfare of unborn millions demands that we all 
make sacrifices. It is not alone those who go to battle 
who are called to suffer; there are hundreds of thousands 
of wounded in our land who never heard the shrieking 



THE BOY COLONEL 79 

missiles of death. This thought is worth more than all the 
world to me, — that we are only on a pilgrimage here, 
and are all to meet, as I trust, in a common home. With- 
out this to cheer me, life would be an aimless, animal 
existence, and the future a dread leap into the dark. I 
hope you will both be courageous and be glad of the 
privilege of suffering for our common cause. . . . For two 
weeks I have worked from sunrise until ten o'clock at 
night in my office, except when walking back and forth to 
meals. It is only by persistent exertion that I can keep 
business away on Sunday. I am trying every day to be 
relieved, but when I take command of the regiment it will 
mean heavy toil again, since only two old officers remain 
and the new ones must all be broken in. But you know 
I always loved to work and am happier when busy than 
in any other way. If any of the discharged boys of Company 
I call to see you, I can assure you that they are every one, in 
my estimation, worthy of more consideration than a king." 

He now made application to be relieved of his commis- 
sary duties, and, on Oct. 27th, took command of his com- 
pany and marched with it through Georgia and South Caro- 
lina. His commission as Lieutenant-Colonel was dated 
October 24th, 1864, but on that very day communication 
with the North was broken to be closed for six weeks, and 
it did not reach him until December 24th, when he took 
command of the regiment and rode at its head into Savan- 
nah. His clerk, W. H. Kemp, in writing of the new 
Lieu tenant- Colonel, says " The new honor seemed embar- 
rassing to the Colonel, and when for the first time he gave 
the command, ' Attention,' to the long line of veterans 
before him, his voice trembled. From this time until the 
regiment was finally mustered out, the following July, he 
was personally in command of the regiment, and I believe 
he left it with the good will of every officer and man 
under his command." 



80 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

At this time Colonel Davis was twenty-six years of age. 
As the youngest regimental commander in the Fifteenth 
Corps and because of his unusual series of promotions he 
was popularly called " The Boy Colonel " throughout the 
division. His youth was further emphasized by his smooth 
shaven face, at a time when every officer from general to 
corporal was entitled to a full beard. " The most remark- 
able thing I remember about him," said a comrade, "was his 
bright and continual smile and clear, brilliant eyes, which 
seemed surcharged with an intensity of fire; the eyes re- 
vealed his power. He could be stern enough when occa- 
sion demanded, but his self-control, expressed in that even, 
genial, kindly manner which nothing seemed to ruffle, must 
have been very great. He had very little patience with 
men who would shirk or neglect their duties, but he was 
always glad to reward a good soldier or help those who 
were unfortunate. I was closely connected with him on 
his staff at headquarters, and his large, generous heart and 
sympathy for the boys often attracted my attention. 
Never did one of them come to him for aid or for special 
privilege that he did not grant it if in his power to do so." 

On arrival in Savannah the Fifty-second was detailed for 
guard duty. The line officers were insufficient to command 
the companies, some of which were receiving their orders 
from sergeants; the quartermaster's commission did not 
come for several months and in the interim the new colonel 
had to be responsible for all the property in the regiment. 
His officers, nearly all promoted from the ranks, were 
without experience, and the task of supervision and of 
breaking in his raw staff, at the same time keeping up the 
efficiency and discipline of the regiment, taxed all of his 
resources. " My headquarters office was in a building 
fronting the wharf. I shall never forget the first Sabbath 
morning after we entered the city, how heavenly the 
strains of ' From Greenland's icy mountains ' sounded, as 



THE BOY COLONEL 81 

played from the steps of the adjoining Seamen's Home by 
a full brass band. The field and staff officers of my regi- 
ment had our rooms in the house of a blockade runner, 
then absent from home. The wife and daughters would 
sing ' Dixie,' over our heads, while we ate our meals in 
the basement. I well remember the oysters we had here, 
roasted on the shell, — a feast after the march to the sea." 

His letters abound in references to the contraband ne- 
groes that poured into the Union lines; the little woolly- 
heads toddling along on foot all day, keeping up with 
the " Mammy," carrying the family possessions in an army 
blanket, while the father marched, a free man, in one of 
Uncle Sam's black regiments, of which there were two in 
the division. While Lieutenant-Colonel he became inter- 
ested in the black cooks of the regiment. Some of them 
asked to be taught to read, and he took pains to send to 
Chicago for primers and organized a reading class for them. 
The thought of missionary service was in his mind, and 
though he eventually entered another home missionary 
field, his interest and belief in the black citizens of America, 
whom he had fought to free, remained strong to the end of 
his life. 

In the absence of a regularly appointed chaplain, the 
colonel himself occasionally took his place and led divine 
service. He secured Rev. G. W. Wainright, of Dundee, as 
chaplain of the regiment for the last six months of its 
service. Standing out clear-cut in the memory of his sur- 
viving comrades is the picture of the old company prayer- 
meeting which he organized and helped to make an up- 
lifting influence in the lives of his men. " A comrade 
came to my quarters and asked me to go with him to a 
prayer-meeting held in a log house, a little way from camp. 
I gladly went. Colonel Davis was leader. He stood in one 
corner of the room with a tallow candle in his hand, while 
he read to us out of his Bible or led the singing. There 



82 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

were no seats. We all had to stand up and when^we knelt 
for prayer we were packed like sardines in a box. I was a 
boy of sixteen and a Christian, and Colonel Davis' talk 
that night and his conduct in his intercourse with his men 
impressed me with the reality of his religion. As Lieutenant 
I have seen him talking to his company boys at roll ■ call 
about giving their hearts to Jesus Christ and being pre- 
pared to die if need be." 

The intimate relation that he had borne to his company 
as its commander, was now, in a measure, duplicated with 
his regiment. He toiled with them in the building of en- 
trenchments, he assisted worn-out men with his own 
mount ; he made it a point to call each day on every sick 
man in his command; in every possible way he looked out 
for the comfort of the boys, allowing them special facilities 
for forage and remitting needless red tape. Knowing the 
dislike of his men for the new regulation forage cap, he 
managed to have them assigned the felt slouch hat, so 
dear to the soldier in rain or sun or cold wind. He safe- 
guarded the mails for his regiment, and what was unusual 
in the army, he cared for the wages of many of the boys. 
There were times when his saddle-bags contained hundreds 
of dollars belonging to his men, with whom he kept an 
informal bank account. Others entrusted him with their 
wills, which he filed away with the papers of the regiment. 
He was often the first to hear of wounded men, and to 
attend them, and not infrequently he performed the last 
burial service for them. Though commander of the regi- 
ment, he was still " one of the boys " on every occasion 
where discipline did not demand the dignity due his rank. 
It is no wonder that his men loved him, that they would 
do anything for him, and that they still, after the flight of 
fifty years, speak of their old Colonel with tender regard 
and admiration. 
The campaign through South Carolina was much harder 



THE BOY COLONEL 83 

than the March to the Sea. " The swamps were worse 
and we had to march beside the division trains and help 
them through. It is safe to say that half the distance that 
the army travelled on all the different roads had to be cor- 
duroyed. This was done with rails, when they were near, 
and later with pine logs. Each division had to put in a new 
corduroy as it came up, since the 300 wagons of one divi- 
sion would sink the rails out of sight. There is no bottom 
to this country. Sherman never reports that the roads are 
impassable on account of the rain, but marches right on, 
piling log after log in the mire, until it will hold up his 
train. We were generally ordered to be ready to march 
at daylight, and were aroused two hours earlier, with a 
hasty breakfast of coffee and hardtack, then pack and 
start on, marching slowly beside the trains, building roads, 
wading in water freezing cold, up to our knees, sometimes to 
the hips, stopping for no dinner, but a hardtack or tw T o 
from our haversacks, and getting into camp anywhere from 
sundown to ten o'clock, and occasionally not till two or 
three in the morning. After getting settled in camp, it 
was my practice to make the rounds of the regiment and 
see if anyone was sick and if the companies had anything 
to eat; if not, get them some rations, when possible, and 
then at eight, ten or twelve o'clock eat the only substan- 
tial meal of the day, and lie down for a few hours of sleep 
on the cold ground, sometimes on pine boughs and some- 
times on rails. Many a night have I lain on four rails, 
the ends laid up two feet high, two slim rails in the center, 
and two stouter ones on the sides, with my haversack for 
a pillow, a rubber blanket thrown over me and the rain 
pouring down all night. 

11 The negroes of Columbia, S. C, were lined up on each 
side of the road leading into the city, all shades, ages and 
conditions, but all wild with joy. They danced, shouted 
and embraced, some rolling over and over in their wild joy. 



84 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

They gathered around me as I rode at the head of my 
regiment, one or two holding onto each hand and each leg, 
shaking and pulling as I went. They cried, ' Bress de 
Lor'! Bress de Lor'! Fader Lincum cum, Bress de Lor'! 
Cotch de debil in his den, dribe him out ! ' etc' One old 
woman threw up her arms and cried, 'Oh, you is all my 
folks; you whip de debil in his den and follow him up! ' 

North Carolina brought fewer swamps, but proximity to 
the retreating enemy with forced marches and constant 
entrenching. " The night of the 15th of March, we were 
ordered to wade across the Black River to support a regi- 
ment which had been thrown across and had been attacked 
by the enemy. I dismounted and waded in at the head of 
my regiment. When we had gone a hundred yards into 
the water up to our waists, we were ordered to halt, and 
there we stood, two companies, in the cold, running stream, 
for half an hour, until some of the men had to be carried 
out with cramps, and then we were ordered back to camp. 

11 March 19th, my regiment was ordered to take an ad- 
vanced position between our army and the enemy, who 
were in force. We waded a creek and guarded a bridge 
till morning. We spent the night in building breastworks 
and early the next morning, without breakfast, marched on 
rapidly to overtake the division. The first five miles it 
was very hard to keep the tired men closed up, but soon 
they heard the booming of cannon in the front, and in a 
moment were all closed up; there was no more lagging; 
we marched the ten miles in two hours and a half and 
when we had taken position in line, the men broke ranks 
with a cheer, ran to the fences and did not rest till a line 
of breastworks was built, but the Battle of Bentonville was 
over and with it the War. 

" At Raleigh, N. C, the regiments were marched in 
review around the capitol square. The Fifty-second pre- 
sented a forlorn appearance, in the last stages of tattered 



THE BOY COLONEL 85 

uniforms. I had ordered a new suit of field officer's 
clothes from the North, months before, but they never 
reached me. . . . One of my men whittled two leaves from 
two silver quarters, which I sewed on my blouse and wore 
that. An officer in command of his company on this re- 
view wore a crownless hat, with his hair waving through 
the top. I had been given a pair of white kid gloves, said 
to have been the wedding gloves of a South Carolina con- 
gressman. I put them on for this review, but the thread 
gave way so that my fingers were all out before the after- 
noon was over. This was the extent of my participation 
in any plunder." 

Then came in swift succession during those fateful spring 
days, the news of the surrender of Lee, the assassination of 
Lincoln and the capitulation of Johnson's army and, at 
last, the final march toward Washington. At the Grand 
Review in Washington, Colonel Davis rode at the head of 
his regiment up Pennsylvania Ave. The officers and men 
were the recipients of prolonged ovations and showers of 
garlands from admiring friends who had come from all 
parts of the North to welcome them home. He wrote to 
his sister, on May 27th, from Camp Washington: — "The 
Review was a grand affair. The streets were crowded with 
citizens. Pennsylvania Ave. was densely packed and every 
door and window and housetop crowded, for nearly two 
miles. The regiment acquitted itself nobly. You can judge 
that I am not growing handsome very fast when I tell you 
that my friends say that I was the only one of nearly fifty 
regimental commanders of our corps whom the ladies did 
not present with a bouquet. I had told my men to look 
square to the front, and as I was riding where they could 
all see me, I set them the example, and I presume the fair 
ones had little opportunity to get my attention as I passed." 

On June first the regiment was transferred to Smith ton, 
Ky., where the order came to proceed to Chicago to be 



86 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

mustered out. " I could not sleep that night. I lay on 
my cot thinking over all the experiences of the four years, 
the dangers through which we had passed, the many who 
had fallen by the way and could not be welcomed home, 
and, especially, that now I was free to carry out the great 
purpose of my life." 

At Smith ton, Ky., Colonel Davis bade farewell to his 
men. As the regiment of veterans was drawn up in line of 
battle for the last time, he addressed them in the following 
words : — 

"Officers and men of the Fifty-second: — The day for 
which we have hoped and wished and prayed for four years 
has arrived. Our country saved, our work as soldiers is 
done, and we gladly return to our homes and our friends. 
We will not say ' good-bye.' We leave an avocation 
which has been endurable only because it was necessary. 
We separate as soldiers to meet and mingle and labor 
together as citizens, and not less I trust for our country 
than before. Allow me to say to you one and all, that for 
the prompt, efficient and faithful manner in which you 
have performed every duty, however arduous or odious, that 
has been imposed upon you, for the kind, brotherly feeling, 
affection, even, that you have maintained among yourselves, 
and especially for the uniform respect and attention you 
have always shown me, and for the universal regard for 
every wish, that I have expressed, since I have had the 
honor to command the regiment, I can never repay you; 
I can but thank you. I trust that the satisfaction that 
always attends duty well done, the welcome plaudits of our 
noble country, and the approving smile of God, who has 
preserved us all to see this happy day, will repay you. Let 
one and all enter our new spheres of action as citizens with 
all the alacrity and youthful vigor that we possess. Choose 
honorable pursuits. Set your mark high, and may you come 
as near perfection as citizens as you have while soldiers. 



THE BOY COLONEL 87 

My heart's best wishes and prayers will follow you. I 
shall always be glad to meet you and to hear of your 
welfare." 

A few days before leaving Smithton for Chicago, the 
officers of the regiment gathered informally in their colonel's 
tent and presented him with a beautiful Howard watch 
and chain. Upon the key was engraved the corps badge, 
a cartridge box with the motto " Forty rounds." It was 
a watch which was to be his constant companion for forty- 
five years. 

Before the regiment was mustered out, Colonel Davis 
paid nineteen dollars to have the nineteen battles and 
skirmishes in which the Fifty-second had taken part, in- 
scribed in gilt letters upon the regimental banner. There 
was barely enough of the tattered flag left to put them on. 
On July tenth the men of the regiment were paid off and 
discharged, and the next day he took leave of his officers, 
and returned to Dundee and to his father's home. 



Chapter VIII 
STUDENT LIFE AGAIN 

COLONEL Davis was twenty-seven years of age when 
he left the army. His old Beloit classmates had grad- 
uated and entered their chosen pursuits. Should he 
go directly into the ministry, or finish his college course? His 
friends told him that the four years of army experience more 
than made up for the two years in college. In this dilemma 
he wrote to Prof. Bartlett, of Chicago Seminary, who advised 
him by all means to go back to college. Such advice com- 
ing, not from a college professor but from a teacher in 
the seminary in which he was planning to study, fixed his 
decision for college. He re-entered Beloit College in Sep- 
tember, 1865. He wrote many years later, " I have never 
ceased to thank God for this decision. That last year in 
Beloit was a great help to me. Not to speak of the ad- 
vantage of having a regular college diploma, the renewal of 
association with the strong men on the Beloit faculty, 
and the friendships with my class of 1866, was a lifelong 
blessing." 

It was not easy for the soldier, after four years spent in 
the open, to resume the quiet college life, but his class- 
mates tell how he adapted himself to the new environment. 
" He was older than the rest of the class and came right 
from the army to us. How well I remember when the 
1 Colonel ' took his place among us. We were a little 
awed at first, fearing he might act as a restraint and try to 
check our flow of spirits. But we soon found that he 
entered into the class spirit just as though he had not 
been the commanding officer of a regiment. ... He was 
born to lead, but did it in such a quiet way that we did not 
know he was leading." 



STUDENT LIFE AGAIN 89 

The return of Jerome Davis to Beloit made a deep im- 
pression upon the students. The fact that a man who 
had attained such military success should, after four years, 
hold educational ideals so highly as to finish his course, 
was a matter of considerable comment. He brought a 
mature experience and a power of reflection and concentra- 
tion which showed at once in his college work. He had 
marked out his life-work, comprehended what it meant, 
and was chiefly interested in those studies which would pre- 
pare him for it. He was especially strong in debate and 
excelled as a parliamentarian. " As President of the Delian 
Society he once led a great parliamentary fight. I was the 
leader of the opposing faction which resorted to every pos- 
sible tactics to harass him. Davis kept cool and not once 
lost his head, and proved himself a masterly presiding 
officer." 

Dr. Arthur H. Smith, of China, a member of the class 
of '67, says: — "Under the loose practice of his predeces- 
sors, the parliamentary meetings had degenerated into free 
and easy palavers, without formalities of any kind. But 
Davis had found a rule that an intending speaker must 
address the chair, and must be recognized, and that he 
must talk to the motion. An irrepressible Delian would 
jump up and begin an excited harangue, to be interrupted 
by the stentorian tones of the Lieutenant-Colonel, shouting, 
1 The gentleman is out of order.' With a puzzled look, 
the orator would begin again, with ' Mr. President, I wish 
to say,' — ' The gentleman is out of order,' thundered the 
presiding officer, and upon being appealed to as to why out 
of order, the speaker would be informed that he must await 
recognition, after addressing the chair. After some weeks 
of this a student who was trying to give, in class, a point 
in International Law, recited instead a rule of Cushing's 
Manual. Probably that small volume had never before 
been so thoroughly mastered in Beloit." 



90 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

During his last year at Beloit he formed a friendship 
with a classmate, D. D. Hill, which exerted a strong in- 
fluence upon him. " Our class had been called ' a little 
boy's class,' but Davis and Hill, who had also been a 
soldier, brought very strong manhood into it. Their 
friendship was like that between Achilles and Patroclus. 
There was a complete contrast between them. Hill was 
combative, critical, seeking the light, charging here and 
there, ready to challenge anybody and anything that did 
not agree with him. They were in the habit of debating 
everything, and we would hear Hill's deep voice, bellowing 
with excitement, while Davis' calm, thin voice would re- 
spond. Hill had physical strength, immense power of 
emotion, gifts of oratory, a great cerebellum; Colonel Davis 
had a great development of the mental and the moral. 
Hill was constantly bucking against college regulations; 
Davis accepted them as army discipline. He was a clear, 
convincing, but not a moving, persuasive speaker, rather 
slow in expressing himself, but every word counted and had 
its weight." 

Colonel Davis felt, what his classmates scarcely realized, 
the great handicap which he was under in having post- 
poned his professional preparation. It was this conscious- 
ness, with the power of using every available moment, 
that enabled him to finish the work of the last two years of 
his college course in one, and to maintain a high standard. 
His roommate says of him, " He saved every minute. He 
suggested, and I agreed to it, that we would not talk to 
each other, or even speak to each other, except for fifteen 
minutes after supper." He saved from his officer's salary 
funds ample to enable him to complete his education, so 
that every energy could now be applied to his studies. 
The army training enabled him to maintain a self-imposed 
discipline that was unusual among college boys. It en- 
abled him, further, to accomplish a large amount of auxil- 



STUDENT LIFE AGAIN 91 

iary reading: D'Aubigne's " Reformation," Hopkins' " His- 
tory of the Puritans in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth," 
Bungener's " The Preacher and the King," " The Priest 
and the Huguenot," " Voltaire and His Times." The lives of 
Pym, Eliot, and John Hampden, Palfrey's " History of 
New England," and Irving's " Life of Washington " were 
among the books which he read during his last year at 
Beloit. 

Life at Beloit, in the sixties, had its lighter side. Base- 
ball and football were played regularly on the campus, 
with large numbers of students participating. Those were 
the days of old-fashioned football, when the whole school 
occasionally took part and kicked the ball and each other's 
shins, without much attention to rules. Several Beloit 
men of that period testify to the hard football playing of 
the colonel. " When he had time to play he did it with 
the same energy that he applied to his studies. Tom 
Chamberlin and Jerome Davis were the two best football 
players in college; when either pair of long legs got started 
down the field after the ball, it was usually hopeless to 
catch them. He was a good captain to plan movements 
and always showed the same even temper and disposition." 

He was a congenial spirit at class gatherings: always 
ready for a joke; approachable and genial, but without the 
boyish tricks and tomfoolery of the average student." He 
felt out of place in general society, and was often at a loss 
with ladies and found it difficult to enter into social small 
talk. He was essentially a man's man. He knew how to 
handle men, and had a quiet air of self-confidence with 
them that was born of long training. He was too busy 
while in college to use these qualities of leadership in any 
of the activities that are dear to college men, except as 
they lay in the line of his preparation, as in the Literary 
Society. " One evening a mock court was held in the 
rooms of two of his classmates. Davis was appointed judge, 



92 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

Rose the offender, Bascom prosecuting attorney, and I, 
counsel for the defendant. The fun was fast and furious, 
and I can recall Lewis and Fitch rolling on the floor 
too convulsed to hold themselves up. Davis' serio-comic 
speeches were one of the features of the evening." 

He had come back from the Army a broader man than 
when he had entered Beloit as a Freshman. A college 
friend, now practicing law in Washington, D. C, tells the 
following story: " One day in front of the old Middle 
College, a prospective theologue had sharply called down 

Sam , for what he considered useless profanity. Sam, 

who had some very positive notions of his own, not ac- 
quired around Beloit College, joined in a sharp argument 
as to the justification of profanity. Just then Colonel 
Davis came walking by, with his dignified military tread, 
and Sam said, ' Now, there comes Colonel Davis. He has 
some sense and we will leave it to him.' The prospective 
theologue considered his case as good as won and gladly 
consented. Davis halted and Sam stated his case, and 
said : — ' Colonel, we have agreed to leave it to you to 
decide whether profanity is ever necessary.' The Colonel 
thought a moment, and then, much to our surprise, said : — 
1 Yes, I think it is. I have seen a ten mule team hitched 
to an army wagon, stuck in the mud in Mississippi, and 
nothing could move it till a man who could yell and use 
the whip and a liberal amount of profanity, all at the 
same time, got into the saddle on the wheel mule, and they 
pulled that wagon out of the mud-hole as if they had been 
shot out of a gun.' That incident increased my respect 
for Jerome Davis and I have always thought that if he had 
become a judge, instead of a missionary, he could have 
done what so few judges are able to do, namely, decide a 
case as he considered right, irrespective of his prejudices." 

A lower classman wrote of him, "In my mind the college 
fell naturally into three parts: — the faculty, the students, 



STUDENT LIFE AGAIN 93 

and Colonel Davis: not because he separated himself 
or was uncompanionable, but because, at the time, this 
seemed the natural analysis. . . . His face in conversation 
was expressive. Davis was always ' all there.' If he 
gave you an opinion, it was not only an opinion, it was a 
conviction. . . . His voice suited the man, for it conveyed 
emphasis, and yet was sympathetic and invited confidence. 
Though he was only one year ahead of me in college, I 
would rather have said or done foolish things in the pres- 
ence of one of the professors, than before him." 

His religious life had shared in the ripening process 
which his whole character had passed through. Every 
one knew him to be a religious man, but his religion was 
of that fundamental kind that pervades the whole person- 
ality as its natural expression. The weekly class prayer- 
meeting, held in rotation in the students' rooms, was a 
source of fellowship and help to most of the men of '66. 
He found great satisfaction in these gatherings. Rev. 
James D. Eaton, D.D. writes: — "At daily prayers in 
the old chapel he sat in the front row, and so when the 
' amen ' had been spoken, he was among the first to march 
down the center aisle, and his was the inspiring face upon 
which my freshman eyes gazed almost every day. He wore 
as did Hill and many others, the long, blue overcoat, drawn 
upon leaving the army, and he usually wore it unbut- 
toned, and walked erect and with military bearing to and 
from his classes, — every inch a soldier. In all of the re- 
ligious meetings of the college, he was a helpful leader, and 
he was a positive force in maintaining a high spiritual tone 
and an earnest purpose of life in the student body. He 
made all of us his debtors, to an extent which we did not 
fully appreciate at the time, but which we realize more 
keenly with the passing of the years." 

In his religious life he was self -con trolled, and took up no 
duties which in any way would interfere with the accom- 



94 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 



plishment of the finest preparation that Beloit could give 
him for his future work. 

After graduating as salutatorian of his class he spent 
the summer vacation in Dundee. It was the first rest that 
he had enjoyed since his army furlough, four years before. 
While at home he wrote to his class: — "Briefly known, 
but much loved Classmates: — I have just received your 
letter and although I can't add much wit or life to it, I 
will not detain it. It finds my vacation two-thirds gone. 
It has passed rapidly. I work half a day and read and 
visit the other half. A few days more will find me conning 
Hebrew in Chicago. I don't think I appreciate my vaca- 
tion as much as some of the class. I had so long a one 
in the army that I am ready to enjoy study again already. 
Perhaps, if I had not studied calculus so long ago I could 
make something of Brown's letter. I surrender! Butler's 
Analogy is easy in comparison. Fred says he has been 
reading the latter; I have just read the introduction by 
Barnes, and like it. My experience is the reverse of Bas- 
com's; not that I have grown bigger, but older. I am not 
1 young folks' here any more. The ' juveniles ' are the 
children of my old scholars. I know less than half of the 
people I meet at sociables and am ruled out at the young 
folk's parties: — a confirmed 'old bach,' you see. I never 
expect to find any parties quite as pleasant as ours were. 
I look back to them as among the pleasantest reminiscences 
of my last year at college. Then I think our class prayer- 
meetings will never be realized so preciously again. With 
a prayer for our success in life and a perfect reunion when 
our day's toil is over. I remain, one of the seventeen." 

In September, 1866, he entered Chicago Theological 
Seminary. He took up his theological course with zest. 
His college friend, Hill, had joined him and they worked 
through the three year course together, as roommates, with 
deepening friendship. During his first year in the seminary 



STUDENT LIFE AGAIN 95 

he spent his Sabbaths in Sunday School work under the 
leadership of Major Whipple. In the autumn of 1866, an 
epidemic of cholera broke out in Chicago, and Davis with 
several other seminary students volunteered as nurses in 
the cholera district. 

The life at Chicago passed rapidly. The fellowship among 
the students was strong and that between teachers and 
pupils unusually helpful. Professor Haven was the teacher 
who most deeply influenced him. His method of teaching 
theology was unique and stimulated independent thinking. 
After stating in his first lecture upon one of the great 
doctrines of belief, all the objections to the orthodox posi- 
tion, he would close by saying, " Now, young gentlemen, 
tell me next time how you will answer those objections." 
Some of the students felt that the objections were un- 
answerable, but Davis' faith, apparently, never wavered. 
His roommate said of him, "It was many months before I 
could accept the doctrine of the Trinity. Colonel Davis 
used to say, ' You will see it and come around in time,' but 
he seemed never to have a doubt." 

Hill was especially interested in Pastoral Theology and 
pressed the subject on his roommate's attention to the 
broadening of his preparation, but the problems of System- 
atic Theology continued to the end of his course to 
offer the greatest attraction to him. He was accustomed 
to beat through a number of possible ways until the final 
solution was reached, and, then, for every problem, there 
awaited the daily argument with his enthusiastic room- 
mate. Cause and effect meant much to him and he was 
ready to accept legitimate conclusions, even if they com- 
pelled him to modify beliefs. This ran through his theol- 
ogy all his life and made him a conservative. 

A student at Chicago Seminary, who later became one of 
Dr. Davis' most intimate associates in the work in Japan, 
was D. C. Greene, who said of him: — " I see him now as 



96 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

he stood up to recite, — tall, erect, with an unmistakable 
military bearing, the most noticeable man in our student 
body. Some of the students were inclined to be narrow 
in their interests and severe in their judgments, and used 
to frown on the pranks of the younger men, but Colonel 
Davis, though with the most ripened experience of any of 
us, had a strong vein of common sense and good judg- 
ment that made him look with leniency upon some things 
that he himself did not care to do, and saved him from a 
narrow Puritanism. A group of classmates had gathered 
one evening in a student's room, in the usual attempt at 
finally settling every problem relating to the human race. 
The Roman Catholic Church came under cross-fire. Some 
said that the church in question was an unmixed evil, and 
others had doubt as to the final salvation of Roman Cath- 
olics. Finally, the Colonel could stand it no longer, and 
heartily championed the Papal cause, stating it as his con- 
viction that God could use that church to his glory, and 
that there might be found just as devoted Roman Catholic 
Christians as Protestant." 

Davis always enjoyed a joke upon his roommate. Hill 
had received a barrel of fine apples from home, and to 
guard against their too speedy disappearance he waited 
until a late hour in the night before rolling it up the three 
flights of stairs to the rooms which he and Davis occupied. 
All went well until the top landing was almost reached, 
when, without warning, the head of the barrel burst and 
the entire contents went rattling and bounding down the 
dormitory stairs with a noise that brought half the students 
to their doors to see the fun. Word of the windfall spread 
so rapidly that, by the time Hill reached the lower hall, 
he could find scarcely enough apples to fill his pockets. 

In the Seminary Davis was not ranked as an easy 
speaker. His slight hesitancy of manner and speech led 
some to say: — "Hill and Douglass will make their mark; 



STUDENT LIFE AGAIN 97 

Davis will not: he does not know how to use his great 
abilities." The criticisms of his classmates and, especially, 
the practical experience of his summer vacations were of 
great value in developing him. 

In the spring of 1867, he applied to the Elgin Associa- 
tion for a license and was assigned to the village of Algon- 
quin, five miles up the river from his home. Here was a 
small Episcopal Church and defunct organizations of Bap- 
tists, Methodists and Congregationalists. His task was to 
reorganize the last named denomination and, if possible, 
build a church in Algonquin. The only available place 
for meetings was a room over a blacksmith's shop, for which 
six months' rent was due. He advanced the money. As 
the room was only partially seated he bought lumber and 
made seats. There were no hymn books and he bought 
these. The preaching was easier than the pastoral work, 
and he found it especially hard to call on strangers, but he 
compelled himself to do this and began a systematic visi- 
tation of the village. The congregations filled up, the 
prayer-meetings interested many, and one young man was 
converted and united with the church. He now deter- 
mined to try for a church building. Previous efforts had 
failed at two points : — the division of the people into four 
denominations and the fact that the Fox River divided 
the town into two districts, each of which would not con- 
cede a church building to the other. 

On July first he started a subscription paper, which he 
circulated himself. Of the $2,100 raised, all but $400 was 
given by non-church members. He found that the key to 
his list was a certain deacon who had a reputation for 
closeness. Several of the citizens, thinking to safeguard 
themselves, promised to duplicate his gift, and were stunned 
to hear that the deacon had given $250.00. He next drew 
plans for a building 32 by 50 ft., with a spire 80 ft. in 
height, went to Chicago, bought the lumber, shipped it 



98 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

to Algonquin, piled it on the lot, and let the contract 
before leaving for the seminary. The church was finished 
and dedicated late that autumn. The greatest accom- 
plishment of the summer was the uniting of the Christians 
of the village into fellowship. The Baptists and Methodists 
united with the Congregationalists in the Sunday School, 
the prayer-meeting and in the Sabbath services. A relig- 
ious interest was aroused among many of the young people, 
several of whom united with the church. 

During his second year at the seminary his letters show 
the reality of his relationship with Christ and the sense 
of privilege in companionship with Him. " Last night we 
had a splendid union prayer-meeting of the three seminaries. 
I have been thinking today of two thoughts presented there : 
— one, that leading a sinner to Christ brings us nearer to 
Him than anything else; the other, that we do not need 
to get hold of Christ so much as that He should get hold 
of us; take us body and mind, and do with us as he will." 

His reading during the middle year at Chicago included 
Longfellow, Tennyson and Browning, and the lives of John 
Wesley and George Whitefield. The early life and struggles 
of Whitefield, with his later success as an evangelist, 
stirred him. He writes, " He was a genius, and his ability 
was devoted to Christ. I have not that genius, but oh, 
I do long for that same devotion which will give me suc- 
cess in proportion to my ability." He was working hard 
at his homiletics, striving to improve his style of writing 
and delivery. With this in view he studied the wide range 
of preachers and preaching that Chicago pulpits offered. 

Through the summer of 1867, he supplied the Congre- 
gational Church at Turner Junction, near Chicago. He 
took up his work there on the first of May, but was too 
tired to do his best. The long strain of military and stu- 
dent life, with the tremendous pace of work that he had 
maintained, had told on his vitality, and he needed a rest. 



STUDENT LIFE AGAIN 99 

He continued at Turner Junction until July, when, acting 
on the advice of a Chicago specialist, he took a month's 
tour of the Great Lakes, which sent him back to his post 
with new enthusiasm. 

One incident of the summer he never tired of relating 
in after years. He boarded in the home of an old deacon 
who expected him, as the " parson," to lead the morning 
worship. After several days of leading the family devo- 
tions, Colonel Davis suggested that the old gentleman 
conduct the morning prayers himself. The deacon's indig- 
nation was intense. He turned on the theologue with 
blazing eyes and an explosive, — " Do you expect me to 
keep a dog and bark too! ! ! " 

One pleasant feature of the life at Chicago was a literary 
society composed of a group of seminary men and of young 
ladies belonging to the best families in Union Park Church. 
The students were made welcome in these cultured homes. 

Colonel Davis greatly enjoyed these gatherings. But it 
was not from this group of young people that the summons 
to surrender reached his heart. That capitulation had 
already been made to a neighbor and friend of his child- 
hood. Toward the close of the war, Colonel Davis had 
remarked to his chaplain that he believed he had not yet 
seen the woman who was to to be his wife. Mr. Wain- 
right gave as his opinion that " the very best living 
girl " was Miss Sophia Strong, who was a member of his 
Dundee Church. The subject was dropped, but the mis- 
chief had been done, for the thought kept returning through 
the following year whether he had not better test the judg- 
ment of the chaplain, and in the summer after his gradua- 
tion from Beloit he became engaged to Miss Strong. 
Sophia Strong was five years younger than Jerome Davis, 
the daughter of Rev. Ephraim Strong, a Presbyterian min- 
ister, of Naperville, 111., who had died shortly after her 
birth,. She was a first cousin of Dr. Josiah Strong, of New 



100 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

York, the pioneer in modern social service. Some years 
after her father's death her mother had married Mr. Alfred 
Edwards, a merchant of Dundee, in whose home she was 
reared with her two older sisters. While Colonel Davis 
was studying in Chicago Seminary, his fiancee taught in 
the Ladies' Seminary at Rockford, 111., where she had 
recently been graduated. 

The early part of his senior year in the seminary, Colonel 
Davis took no outside work, but in the winter of 1868 he 
supplied the church at Sandwich, 111., the home of some 
regimental comrades. In March, the Sandwich Church 
gave him a call for six months with a view to a permanent 
pastorate. The church and community were unusually 
congenial, while the proximity of the town to Chicago and 
to Dundee were added attractions. Friday afternoons saw 
him taking the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy train for 
Sandwich, where he spent two days, returning to the sem- 
inary on Monday morning. An ill-timed jump from the 
train, one Monday morning, as Colonel Davis used to say, 
may have changed the history of his life. " The C. B. & 
Q. runs a mile south of our seminary and, by jumping off 
the train at a point where it usually slowed down to four 
miles an hour, and walking across to Ashland Boulevard, 
I could save an hour's time. I had generally done this, 
but one morning they were running faster than I thought, 
with the result that my nose was so badly broken that I 
could not go to Sandwich the next Sabbath, and I got one 
of my classmates, an able man, to go in my place." This 
able classmate was none other than his chum, D. D. Hill. 
Hill's large-hearted geniality and adaptation for pastoral 
work won the hearts of the congregation, and before the 
Colonel's nose had healed, the Sandwich Church had re- 
considered its call in favor of his friend. It was a delicate 
situation: Hill was his best friend and though he had con- 
sidered the call to Sandwich as practically settled, he at 



STUDENT LIFE AGAIN 101 

once sent in his resignation. This was a severe blow to 
Colonel Davis' professional pride, but he spent no time in 
vain regrets and, immediately after graduation accepted 
a call to a church in Mineral Point, Wisconsin. 






Chapter IX 
THE HARDEST FIELD 

SHORTLY before graduating from Chicago Theological 
Seminary, Colonel Davis called upon Secretary J. E. Roy 
of the Congregational Home Missionary Society, and in- 
quired if there was any work for him in the deep interior. 
Said he, " I want you to give me the hardest field west of 
the Mississippi River." Dr. Roy was struck both by the 
unusual request and by Colonel Davis' adaptation for a 
pioneer field, and mentioned Cheyenne, Wyoming, as a 
post meeting the requirements. He wrote the same day to 
Dr. D. B. Coe, general secretary of the society in New 
York: " April 22, 1869: We have conquered a Colonel. Lt.- 
Col. J. D. Davis came to me today to inquire if there was 
any work for him in the Far West. I mentioned Cheyenne. 
If you want a man for that point, Davis is the one. A 
Beloit student, he went into the war a private, and came 
out a Colonel, loved and honored by his men. Returning, 
he finished his studies at Beloit and has taken his full 
course here. . . . The qualities exhibited as a soldier, he 
possesses in his Christian character. He was the man who 
used his two vacations to bring up the Algonquin and 
Turner churches so splendidly. He has organizing ability. 
He is one of the very first in his class for talent; has a 
fine appearance, about twenty-eight years old and un- 
married. You will be safe in giving him a commission at 
once. A prominent church wants him, but he prefers the 
interior." 

During his third week of service at Mineral Point, while 
considering the invitation of that church to become its 
pastor, a letter from the Home Missionary Society arrived 



THE HARDEST FIELD 103 

which put the question of Cheyenne before him. A 
frontier field like Wyoming offered exactly the conditions 
which appealed to him and it did not take long to decide 
in favor of the call. It was another matter, however, 
to ask a woman, reared as delicately as Miss Strong had 
been, to share a pioneer life with him. Mrs. Edwards had 
already given one daughter to Micronesia, and felt a nat- 
ural reluctance to her youngest daughter's settling so far 
from home. A compromise was finally arranged, by which 
it was settled that Colonel Davis should enter the new 
field alone, thoroughly investigate it and, if it seemed suit- 
able as a permanent location, return for his bride. 

He wished to be ordained before going to Cheyenne, in 
order to be able, from the start, to exercise the full duties 
of the ministry. It was a mutual joy that his friend Hill 
could receive ordination with him. The council was ap- 
pointed for the first Sabbath in June, in the Dundee 
Church, with Dr. J. E. Roy officiating. 

Colonel Davis reached his new field on the 4th of June, 
1869. Cheyenne, at this time, was the terminus of the 
Union Pacific Railroad, and was little more than a great 
construction camp. The railroad shops, Fort Russell, 
a United States Army post, and the capital of the Terri- 
tory had all been located at Cheyenne and assured a future 
to the town. It was already an important supply point 
for the whole region. Vice of every kind flourished. Sixty 
saloons, besides gambling houses and dance halls, the pre- 
cursors of western civilization, were the lodestones which 
drew the men of the plains and mountains to the new city. 
There were a few decent men in the place, but it doubtless 
merited its nickname, " Hell on Wheels." A few miles 
before reaching his destination, Colonel Davis read the 
following advertisement in the Cheyenne daily paper; " I 
will fight my dog, ' Jerry,' vs. the wildcat, next Sunday 
afternoon, at two o'clock, in the Theatre. Admission: one 



104 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

dollar." Within two weeks he was holding Sunday even- 
ing services in this theatre. 

The Presbyterians and Congregationalists of the town 
had united in calling him to form a Congregational Church. 
In view of this united action he was not prepared to find 
that the Presbyterian Home Missionary Society had also 
sent their agent to Cheyenne and had taken steps toward 
organizing a Presbyterian Church. The Christians of the 
little community were divided; some, attracted by the 
Presbyterian promise of a church edifice, had given up 
the union plan, but others remained true to their Congrega- 
tional friends and pledged their support to Colonel Davis. 

It was a crucial problem whether to attempt a parallel 
organization with a powerful society entering the field, 
ready to back up its representative with a liberal subsidy. 
He wrote to Dr. Coe: — "I received my commission this 
week, started Wednesday and arrived here yesterday after- 
noon. The Presbyterians are trying to organize. The 
society offers $5,000.00 for a building. It is a big bait. 
I am commissioned and ordained to this work and shall 
hold on if half a dozen will stand by me, provided your 
society will do so, too. ... I think there will be room for 
the two churches here soon. We shall organize, June 13th. 
... It will take, at least, $1,600.00 to support us. ... I 
have to pay S14.00 a week for board. I want to be free, 
head, hands and heart, to work among this people during 
the first year. I think the people here will, in any event, 
raise $600.00 and I want to know whether your society will 
pledge the balance and advise me to remain. If not, please 
send me a telegram not to organize. Our people here are 
almost discouraged, and will have to be held up, but I 
hope that we can yet secure united effort. I shall have no 
controversy with any one." 

Three days later he wrote: — "Everything is working 
well. The Presbyterians may go on with their building, 



THE HARDEST FIELD 105 

but some of them will unite with us. I am finding one or 
two new Congregationalists every day. We are sure of 
ten to unite with us next Sabbath. . . . Our people would 
have given up easily if I had backed off . . . and that is 
what the Presbyterian Society expected, but I have not 
thought of it for a moment and now we are gaining heart 
every day. I have a delightful room, looking out upon 
Long's Peak, the Rocky Mountains' snowy range and the 
Black Hills. I took a ride today with Mr. Snow, Gov. 
Campbell of Wyoming, Judge Howe, Gov. McCook of 
Colorado, and some ladies. We went about fifteen miles 
west among the hills, occasionally shooting an antelope." 

What the situation at Cheyenne needed in this critical 
juncture was firm decision and prompt action. At these 
points the new pastor did not fail. After ten days of in- 
tense work and consultation and prayer, the little band of 
Congregationalists in Cheyenne was welded together and a 
church organized on June 13th. The following day he 
wrote: — "Dear Dr. Coe: — God is with us and we have 
succeeded beyond expectations. I drew up a paper a week 
ago which virtually organized our church. I signed it my- 
self and as soon as one more signed it we had our church. 
I kept on praying and working all the week and by Satur- 
day night thirteen had signed the paper. That evening we 
had a meeting, adopted a constitution, creed and covenant. 
We elected a deacon, clerk, treasurer and five trustees, 
consisting of Chief Justice Howe, another prominent busi- 
ness man outside the church and three church members. 
Yesterday we entered into covenant with each other and 
with God, eleven joining by letter and two on confession. 
We were all alone. It is four hundred miles to our nearest 
neighbor, East, and 1,200 miles to the first church of our 
order, West; we have five churches over one hundred miles 
South, only two of them manned, and there is nothing be- 
tween us and the North Pole. Tonight, we elect sub- 



106 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

scription and building committees, and proceed at once to 
secure a place of worship. . . . We are gaining strength 
every day. It looked very dark when I first came, but 
now I can see God's hand in the counter movement. If 
all had gone in with us we should have had trouble sooner 
or later. Now we have a distinctively Congregational 
Church and are entirely united. . . ." 

Dr. Coe, Secretary of the Congregational Home Mission- 
ary Society, was troubled by the Cheyenne situation, and 
wrote, advising to wait a few weeks before organizing a 
church. He delayed the answer to the Colonel's report of 
the situation so long, however, that his advice was too late. 
Having had no order to the contrary from headquarters, 
the new pastor had taken the responsibility upon himself. 
He replied to Dr. Coe, " Your favor in reply to the letter I 
sent on my arrival here was received the day after we 
had organized our church, so that it was too late to wait a 
few weeks. Everything here seemed to indicate that 
prompt action was best. We are prospering. The community 
is subscribing toward an edifice and in the meantime we are 
holding Sabbath evening services in the theatre." 

Once that organization had been effected, Colonel Davis' 
belief in the enterprise and his enthusiasm for its future 
was very strong. It required no prophet to see that Chey- 
enne was destined for a future of considerable importance, 
and it hurt him to have his society take the position 
that the new church was in the nature of an experiment. 
" I object to you calling this enterprise ' an experiment.' 
Are the Union Pacific Railroad, or our denomination or the 
Gospel experiments? This enterprise will succeed as surely 
as those things are sure. The work here looks perfectly 
grand to me. I do not know of a place on this continent 
where such an important work can be done for Christianity 
as right here in Cheyenne. I thank God continually that 
He has honored me by calling me to it." 



THE HARDEST FIELD 107 

After organization came church building. He encour- 
aged the building committee by working with a subscrip- 
tion paper himself. He was impatient under a series of 
delays in getting the committee at work, and his joy when 
the whole committee were pushing the canvass abreast was 
great. Three two-hundred dollar pledges and several gifts 
of one hundred dollars each were made by leading men, 
including the Governor of the Territory. One thousand five 
hundred was given by Cheyenne citizens, over half coming 
from non-Christian men. 

He secured the $1,300 still needed, in equal proportions 
from the Church Building Society and from friends in 
Chicago, so that the church was built and furnished with- 
out a debt. Through General T. A. Dodge, his old divi- 
sion commander, now President of the Union Pacific Rail- 
way, not only was a quarter of a block in the finest part of 
town given as a site, but the lumber for church and par- 
sonage was hauled over the Union Pacific, free of cost. 

During ten days in Chicago he secured pledges for $1,000 
in lumber, which had to be collected from distant yards, 
carted to the assembling point and started West. With 
the money saved from his officer's salary, he bought the 
lumber for a small house, had it planed and ripped to the 
right widths for flooring, casing, etc., purchased glazed 
windows and doors, lathe and pasteboard to use instead of 
plaster, and tarred pasteboard to keep out the northern 
blasts. 

With the building materials for his new church and house 
assured, he went to Dundee and, on the 15th of July, was 
married to Miss Strong in her mother's home. A wedding 
trip of a month's duration followed, including a voyage 
around the Great Lakes, four days at Niagara Falls and 
visits with relatives in Rochester and Brooklyn, N. Y., and 
in Ohio. Floods in Iowa so delayed the moving of building 
materials and goods that they had to live for a month, 



108 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

after reaching Cheyenne, in the home of the Collector of 
Internal Revenue, whose hospitality saved them serious 
inconvenience. 

Colonel Davis set to work at once to prepare the foun- 
dations of the church and parsonage. He borrowed a team 
and wagon and hauled stone, quarried with his own hands, 
from the hills. Neighbors told him that no two-story 
house built of wood could stand against the violent winter 
gales, but he believed differently. Digging a deep pit at 
the windward corner of the house, he sunk a pitch-pine tree 
trunk, a foot in diameter, six feet in the earth, filled it in 
with concrete and spiked the sill beams of the house to 
this tree trunk. He laid up the stone foundation, put on 
the sills, dug the cellar, and had all in readiness for putting 
the frame together when the lumber finally arrived. The 
workmen on the church raised the four side bents of the 
frame, which was the only help he had in building his 
house, except that which his wife gave him. " She helped 
me by holding one end of the longer boards, or holding 
the posts while I nailed them, and later by nailing on the 
lath inside the house and the pasteboard, etc.; all this, 
besides doing the cooking and housework." And so it was 
that the " tenderfoot parson " and his wife built the first 
two-story frame house in Wyoming, a house so well con- 
structed that, after forty-five years, it still stands as a 
monument to the resourcefulness and determination of the 
builder. 

The winds were so severe that they were kept awake 
many a night by the small pebbles blown against the side 
of the house. Faces had to be covered when facing one 
of these storms, which would leave a thick coating of dust; 
but in the midst of these difficulties the minister and his 
bride worked on. 

Shortly after the arrival of the lumber, word came that 
they must immediately vacate their temporary quarters. 



THE HARDEST FIELD 109 

The little wing, 8 x 10 ft., was already enclosed, but the 
doors and windows were not in and the roof was only 
half shingled. A furious snowstorm was raging that day, 
and he had to brush off the snow constantly to see the 
lines while he finished the roof, sitting on the shingles as he 
took them out one by one. He nailed up the doors and win- 
dows with boards, moved up the few goods from the other 
house, and they began housekeeping in their tiny room. 
Several marriages were solemnized in that little room. The 
parsonage was finished before Christmas. The pastor 
painted his house white, encircled it with a picket fence, and 
in the spring went to the hills for cottonwood trees, which 
he planted in front of both parsonage and church. 

Thanksgiving Day overtook them in their narrow quar- 
ters. The previous evening a friend called and asked them 
to step over to the church, whose unfinished interior was 
well lighted and nearly filled with friends gathered about 
the work benches, which were loaded with eatables. Before 
Colonel Davis had recovered from his surprise, one of 
the trustees presented him with a pocketbook containing 
$150.00 in the name of the assembled company. Upon 
the list of presents, which represented nearly every possible 
commodity for the table, as well as useful articles for the 
housekeeper, was written the name of nearly every family 
in town, including Catholics and scores who had no church 
connections, and many men without families. The next 
morning, a merchant, who had been out of town the night 
before, sent his wagon to the parsonage half filled with 
groceries, a barrel of flour, two bushels of potatoes, etc. 
No eloquent sermons could account for such a community 
response, nor was it only that the new parson had visited 
everybody and tried to speak a sympathetic word to all. 
When the committee was soliciting gifts, many a rough man 
had said: — " If it's for that man who is building his own 
house, I want to give: he's the kind of a parson I believe in." 



110 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

With the completion of the church building the duties 
of the pulpit and pastorate assumed definite shape. It was 
not easy to secure or hold an audience in Cheyenne. A 
few attended services faithfully, but the bulk of the con- 
gregation would change with every new supply of the other 
pulpits in the town. The Sabbath School thrived, and 
when, once in two months, the Sabbath School concert was 
held, the church, which would seat two hundred persons, 
was packed to the doors. The prayer-meeting was a diffi- 
cult problem. " At first it was very hard to get anybody 
to take part. They were all out of the habit of praying or 
speaking. I determined to get them into it again, and so 
gave out interesting, practical subjects. After brief open- 
ing exercises, I put the subject before them in the form of 
questions, in a conversational way, bringing a chair down 
the aisle to sit with the people in one corner of the room. 
Before they knew it, they became interested, and spoke 
their views, and offered many brief and touching prayers." 

Cheyenne was made up of a motley population. Some 
were from New England and had a piano in the single 
room of their home. Some were from the old West, some 
from the new, while soldiers of fortune from England and 
Europe were mixed with men from the South, who had lost 
all in the Civil W r ar. They were alike in one respect only; 
all had come West to make their fortune, few expecting to 
build permanent homes. Religion had usually been left 
behind, and when the pastor tried to talk personally about 
church membership and the Christian life, he was told 
again and again, " God hasn't crossed the Missouri River 
yet." Recklessness, immorality and crime ran rampant 
through the town. The "badman " type, so familiar dur- 
ing the following decade, was already in evidence. The first 
eighty men who were buried in the wretched cemetery 
died with their boots on, and when Colonel Davis arrived 
in Cheyenne, a self-appointed vigilance committee had left 



THE HARDEST FIELD 111 

six ruffians hanging to the telegraph poles. The few decent 
families in the community were, for along while, afraid to 
get acquainted with each other, for it was hard to know 
who were respectable and who were not. Upon the com- 
pletion of the railroad, the daily transcontinental trains 
met during the hour of the morning service and greatly 
interfered with regular church attendance. 

Such were the obstacles that the new preacher had to 
contend with. It was a situation whose handling needed 
a fearless and practical man. That he was a seasoned 
veteran soldier was known to everyone and was greatly in 
his favor, and enabled him to go where many men would 
have hesitated. " I visited everybody in the town, save 
the inmates of the houses of prostitution, and called on 
the keepers of these places and talked plainly with them." 
His sympathy for these unfortunate women was deep, and 
several times he was asked to conduct funeral services for 
them. Mrs. Davis loyally supported her husband in his 
efforts to make Cheyenne a cleaner city. They offered 
their home as a refuge for any fallen woman who would 
come to them in an effort to reform, publishing this invita- 
tion, with an appeal to such women, in the daily news- 
paper. 

He interpreted the work of the pastorate in a large way, 
taking a keen interest in public affairs and in every munic- 
ipal activity. Whether it was the caring for the sick 
apple woman at the Cheyenne station, a prayer with the 
dying cow-boy, shot to death on the main street of the 
town, the introduction of a system of water-works, the re- 
moval of the public cemetery to a better site, or the im- 
provement of the public schools, there was no movement 
for municipal betterment but aroused his enthusiasm and 
cooperation. He saw that Cheyenne's future depended 
upon an adequate water supply, and began a campaign of 
education, using the press, his pulpit and personal calls 



112 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

as means of keeping the matter before the attention of the 
town. The pastor did not stop with argument, but shoul- 
dered a shovel and worked with the citizens in the great 
ditch by which the waters of Crow Creek were finally 
turned into a natural basin above the town. His perti- 
nent suggestions as to improving the public school system 
of Laramie County resulted in Governor Campbell's ap- 
pointing him county superintendent of schools, a position 
which he held during the last year in Cheyenne. 

This was the type of Christianity that the people of the 
frontier town appreciated more than pulpit power. One of 
his parishioners wrote many years later: — "He was an 
interesting speaker, but it was the spirit of service that 
gave special force to his pulpit efforts and brought people 
out to see what such a man would have to say." One of 
his deacons said: — "I never saw a man who worked so 
hard or who was so deeply in earnest in all he did." After 
a church excursion, the proceeds of which had purchased 
a bell for the Congregational Church, the Methodist minis- 
ter called on Colonel Davis and said, " Now see here, 
Brother Davis, you have milked this cow long enough. 
It is time that you stand back and let some of the rest of 
us have a chance." 

In the late spring of 1870, a little son, Jay Doane, came 
to the parsonage, named after his missionary uncle in Micro- 
nesia. Eight months later, after a sickness of two days, 
they laid him away in the lot beside the church. " This 
was to us a blessed experience. I had never before real- 
ized the meaning of the word, ' blessedness.' The thought 
that the Heavenly Father loved us so much as to provide 
a way of salvation for the little ones, and that the same 
Saviour who took the children in his arms and blessed 
them, and said, ' of such is the Kingdom of Heaven,' 
would come now and receive him so that we could be sure 
that our darling would be cared for and trained far better 



THE HARDEST FIELD 113 

than we possibly could; that he was forever safe; these 
thoughts quite overcame me, as we bowed together the 
next morning in our family devotions." 

During the winter of 1870, an event occurred which was 
instrumental in his decision to change his field and to 
preach Christ to those who had never heard of Him. 
During one of his regular visits at Fort Russell, he learned 
of an Indian who was under sentence of death for having 
killed a white man who had attacked his wife. The Post 
Commandant gave Colonel Davis permission to see the 
prisoner whenever he wished, and he walked the four miles 
between Cheyenne and the fort many times to visit the 
Indian in his cell. " He only knew ten or twelve words of 
English, but by signs we talked a little, until I finally 
brought a picture of Christ upon the cross, and with this 
attempted to make him understand. It was hard to make 
him realize that he was a sinner. With the engraving I 
succeeded in making him understand that the Father, the 
Great Spirit, sent his Son to die for sinners, and that all 
who would believe on him, repenting of their sins, would 
go to the home of the Great Spirit. He made a remarkable 
drawing of the scene of his punishment, himself standing 
upon the gallows, rope about his neck, with one hand 
pointing up, while Christ was near upon a cross, and the 
Great Spirit above." 

On the morning of the execution Colonel Davis visited 
the Indian in his cell and walked with him to the gallows. 
After the rope had been adjusted about the neck of the 
condemned man, the pastor stood beside him and made a 
brief prayer, commending him to the Heavenly Father. 
The prisoner said a few words in broken English, " Me not 
afraid to die; me go up," pointing upward with his finger, 
and the drop fell. This experience of giving the poor 
Indian a first glimpse of the loving heart of the Great 
Father increased the latent desire to give his life to the 



114 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

millions, across the Pacific, who had never heard of 
Him. 

The field of the great West had attracted Colonel Davis 
as one of immediate and future need. He sent frequent 
appeals to the Home Missionary Society and to the Con- 
gregational constituency to occupy the territory which had 
barely been entered and which lay open to their hand. 
After a prophetic statement of the potentialities of the 
Rocky Mountain region, he closed w T ith a plea for ade- 
quate occupation: — " In the army, when a fierce battle is 
raging at the front, the hospitals are made ready to receive 
the wounded whom the ambulance trains will soon unload 
at their doors; they do not wait till the trains arrive. Just 
so here. We know that millions of sick and sin-deadened 
souls will soon fill this region. Shall we wait and later on 
establish churches over the graves of dead souls! Now is 
the time to possess this land. A greater than Macedonian 
cry goes up from the vast West. ... I cannot express the 
importance of this field. It cannot be told. It can only 
be felt." 

Although this appeal and others of a similar nature were 
published, a year passed away and nothing was done to 
occupy the field or to man the churches already organized. 
The Home Missionary Society was suffering from lack of 
men and money and could not consider such an extensive 
program. After its first boom, Cheyenne had entered upon 
a period of depression. Its decreasing population of some 
1,500 people was being served by five fully organized 
churches and the evils of sectarianism became very ap- 
parent and galling to Colonel Davis. He chafed at the 
overmanning of one point, at the expense of the whole 
field. 

This inability of the Congregational Home Missionary 
Society to occupy the great West, together with the im- 
pelling motive of his life, worked the inevitable; horizons 



THE HARDEST FIELD 115 

now receded rapidly before his vision, which became 
bounded by a new frontier, including an ocean and an even 
needier field than the Rocky Mountain region in its sweep. 

The call of the Far East grew daily more incessant and 
compelling. He wrote: — " Our work here has degenerated 
into a sectarian work. One of the four churches will hold 
all that ever go to church. We ought to either give up the 
weak hold that we have in this Territory and let the other 
denominations that are alive work it, or else man these 
points at once, and put a live agent into the field." 

After describing the energetic way in which the other 
denominations had pushed ahead, he says, " I have watched 
all this go on for two years and sometimes it seemed as if 
I should fly to pieces. We cannot recover in twenty years 
what we have lost in the last two. After all, it is not a 
question of who does the work, so much, if it is done. . . . 
Now I cannot consent to act as agent to go into little 
towns where there are three or four other churches and 
organize Congregational churches and then nurse them after 
they are born. . . . The question is not whether I am to 
have a hand in moulding this region or Japan. The ques- 
tion is whether I am to stay here where there are two or 
three other workers, and where one will come to take my 
place, or whether I shall go to the thirty millions of Japan, 
where no one will take my place. I prefer the latter and I 
choose because I believe that Christ chooses for me." 

In the spring of 1871, he published in the "Advance" 
and " Congregationalist " the facts which were attracting 
him to the foreign field, and invited four other men to 
consider the same call and thus complete the quota of five 
missionaries whom the American Board needed for China. 
He said: — " The field here is overcrowded, as it is all over 
the West, and in many portions of the East. There is no 
difficulty in finding men for this work. It is not so with 
the foreign field. Notwithstanding very strong convic- 



116 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

tions I should not offer myself to the Board if men were 
forthcoming. Scarcely any one has responded to the ap- 
peals for foreign workers for the last few years. China 
with nearly half the human race has only one Profestant 
minister to four millions. Japan has less. The world will 
not understand it, but I know of only one principle which 
should guide us : — where will our lives amount for the 
most for Christ! I am selfish in the matter, as I long to 
have a hand in laying the foundations of Christianity 
among those millions. . . . We realize on this great high- 
way of the nations that the world is small and that the 
race is one." 

He sent copies of this letter to most of the pastors of his 
acquaintance, but without a single favorable response. 
Prof. S. L. Bartlett of Chicago Seminary was the only 
friend who encouraged him to go; the rest were not merely 
indifferent, but adverse. However, the inner conviction 
remained clear, and, together, Colonel Davis and his wife 
decided to offer themselves to the American Board for ap- 
pointment. When it became apparent that no one else 
would volunteer to go with them to China, the question 
of the " one for Japan " for whom the Board was calling, 
came strongly home. He had heard much of the difficul- 
ties of the Chinese language, and the report that Japanese 
was easier seemed a leading toward Japan, for he knew 
himself to be handicapped in linguistics. And so a request 
for appointment to Japan, and not China, was sent to the 
Board rooms in Boston and the appointment was made. 

It was hard to leave Cheyenne. Roots had struck in 
deep. The people felt that they could not give up the 
pastor who had done so much for church and community. 
On the other hand it was hard to leave such friends and 
the first home which they had built together and in which 
they had toiled, and suffered and rejoiced. 

Colonel Davis was anxious regarding the appointment 



THE HARDEST FIELD 117 

of his successor, but had the satisfaction of securing Rev. 
Josiah, now Dr. Josiah, Strong, who was on the field before 
he left the country. A seminary friend, the late Dr. D. C. 
Greene, who was already at work under the American 
Board in Japan, wrote in August, 1871, of his joy at Colo- 
nel Davis' decision: "You will find need enough of the 
Gospel here: a teachable people, a beautiful country, but a 
government in deadly opposition to Christianity and bound 
to use all its power in preventing its introduction into the 
land." 

After bidding farewell to the Cheyenne church, Colonel 
Davis and his wife attended the annual meeting of the 
American Board in Salem, Mass. Here, he first met 
Joseph Neesima, who had just entered Andover Seminary. 
" He elbowed his way through the crowd and asked if we 
were going to Japan, and then grasped my hand and with 
tears in his eyes told how glad he was to meet me, and 
that he was also going back before many years to work for 
Christ." 

There was much to discourage in the outlook for Japan, 
just then. The reaction, which caused the second perse- 
cution of the Catholic Christians in Nagasaki, and the 
arrest of Mr. O. H. Gulick's teacher, Ichikawa, in Kobe, 
had come, and it seemed doubtful whether they would be 
allowed to work in Japan. However, he had been led to 
apply for Japan, and had been appointed to that field, 
and he replied to Dr. L. H. Gulick's proposal that he be 
transferred to his new field in Spain, that he would go 
on to Japan and remain there if allowed to land, and if 
not allowed to land, he would then consider some other 
field, 



Chapter X 
FIRST YEARS IN JAPAN 

MR. and Mrs. Davis sailed from San Francisco on No- 
vember first, 1871. In those days there was but one 
line of passenger steamers from the Pacific coast to 
the Far East, with one boat a month. The "America," a large, 
side-wheel steamer, was slow and unsteady, and thoroughly 
initiated the new sailors into the mysteries of sea sickness. 
Among the fifty passengers, were Mr. and Mrs. Thompson 
of China, Mr. and Mrs. Bradley, of Siam, and Mr. Mackay, 
en route to Formosa. On a lovely autumn morning they 
awoke in Yodo Bay, the constraint and rigors of the 
twenty-six days' passage behind, a new world before. 

" Who can describe the first impressions which the old 
empire makes upon one who has never before looked out 
of the new America. The bold headlands of its rocky 
coast, its wave-beaten islets, its precipitous shores, deeply 
indented with gulfs and bays, its scudding fleets of white- 
winged fishing boats, its; sharp peaks and steep-terraced 
valleys and, over all, the great, white cone of sacred ' Fuji,' 
rising sheer from the waters of Sagami Bay, all make an 
abiding impression which no later view can efface. I shall 
never forget the first walk in Yokohama from the fort op- 
posite the harbor, around through the narrow streets back 
to the landing. Every utensil, every building and every 
human being was a novelty. I lived a week in a few 
hours." 

On the first of December they reached Kobe, were given 
a hearty welcome by Mr. and Mrs. D. C. Greene and Mr. 
and Mrs. O. H. Gulick, the missionaries of the American 
Board already on the field* and in ten days were settled in 
their own rented house* 

118 



FIRST YEARS IN JAPAN 119 

Although Protestant missionaries had been in the empire 
for twelve years, slow progress had as yet been made. The 
imperial edict boards against Christianity were still stand- 
ing, as they had stood for 275 years, making it a capital 
offence to accept Christianity. The persecution of the 
Catholic Christians in Nagasaki went steadily on. No man 
dared openly study the prescribed religion, and gatherings 
for preaching or teaching could be held only in private 
residences and involved dangers that few cared to face. 

The previous July, Mr. Gulick's teacher, Mr. Yeinosuke 
Ichikawa, with his wife, was seized and imprisoned for 
having read a pen-made copy of the Gospel of Mark. Soon 
after reaching Kobe, Mr. Davis called with Mr. Greene 
upon Governor Kanda, of Hyogo Prefecture, on behalf of 
the prisoners. The Governor told them that if Mr. Ichi- 
kawa had received baptism there was no hope of saving his 
life, but if not, it might be possible to save him, and 
promised to inquire regarding the man. 

They afterward learned that Mr. Ichikawa had died in 
prison, previous to their call upon the Governor. His wife, 
who was released, reported that he had died with great 
joy in his heart, trusting in Christ. Thus suffered the 
first and only Protestant martyr in Japan. 

The Bible was still a proscribed book, the Governor of 
Kobe announcing that if a book seller sold a Bible, knowing 
it to be such, he should be obliged, acting by imperial order, 
to put him in prison. 

Under such handicaps the first Protestant missionaries 
in Japan worked for thirteen years, until the edicts against 
Christianity were finally removed in 1872. Those were 
days of the testing of faith and of waiting, but the new 
missionary found himself, from the first, well occupied with 
the language and with indirect work. His efforts at lan- 
guage study were characteristic: " My teacher was a 
scholar from Kyoto. He came the first morning with a 



120 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

list of Chinese characters that he wished me to learn. I 
told him that I wanted to learn to talk the language of 
the common people, and so we began. I used to take a 
string of cash and spend hours in the shops, trying to talk 
with the people. There were very few language helps. We 
had Hepburn's Dictionary, and a Grammar written by a 
Hollander who had never seen Japan. There were no books 
in the colloquial language." 

To a man of his direct habits of speech, the circum- 
locutions of the language were trying, and it was a long 
time before he became reconciled to saying, " The not 
doing of this must not be." for plain English, " You must." 
He early learned the value of first-hand bargaining with 
the people: " I wanted a wash board, and taking my serv- 
ant to a carpenter shop, asked him to bargain for the board. 
I had told my servant that I could not pay more than 
fifty cents, and, thereupon, he at once told the carpenter 
to charge not less than fifty cents. I never took a servant 
along to help me after that." 

During those first weeks curious mistakes were made. 
Mrs. Davis, one day, meaning to order " niku " (meat), 
for dinner, instead, ordered. " neko " (a cat), and was hor- 
rified when the cook brought in a fine black cat and asked 
if it would do. 

After ten days, the teacher, frightened because of gov- 
ernment persecutions of the Nagasaki Christians, left, and 
for a year it was difficult to find a man who dared to sit 
down beside a missionary and teach him the language. For 
nearly two years the servants would not listen to any 
Christian teaching. 

Forty days after the arrival of Mr. and Mrs. Davis, a 
little daughter, whom they named Clara Strong, was born. 

Early in June. 1872, in company with Dr. and Mrs. J. C. 
Bern,-, who had just arrived to reinforce the mission. Mr. 
Davis made a visit to the interior citv of Kvoto, the 



FIRST YEARS IN JAPAX 121 

ancient capital and the center of art and religion of the 
empire. The city, which had been closed to foreigners for 
two centuries, was opened during one hundred days for an 
exhibition of arts and industries. While in Kyoto they 
were invited by Mr. Davis' old teacher to take dinner, as 
guests of honor, with some fifty Japanese physicians. This 
experience profoundly impressed Mr. Davis with the im- 
portance of Kyoto as a center for educational and evange- 
listic work. " I shall never forget the impression that 
Kyoto made upon me as we stood on Maruyama 1 and 
heard the hum of its traffic as it came up to our ears. I 
was moved with the beauty of the situation, surrounded 
with mountains on all sides, the magnificent temples, the 
great image of Buddha and the lovely art objects of Japan, 
which I now saw for the first time. The ovation given 
Dr. Berry shows that missionary physicians are needed 
here and can exert an influence from the first that will be 
felt by a whole city. It shows that this people is ready for 
the truth and will welcome contact with the world. We 
are expecting any morning to wake up and find all Japan 
open to us, and then where are the men to put into the 
requisite centers? We cannot overestimate the importance 
of Kyoto. An interior city of 300,000 people, it is the 
center of a rural population of one million within a radius 
of ten miles. We ought to have a strong force of, at least, 
three missionaries and a physician to put in there at once." 
In July, upon the advice of Dr. Berry, they took the 
baby to the village of Arima, in the mountains north of 
Kobe, a place noted for its waterfalls and medicinal springs, 
and lived in two rooms of a Japanese house through the 
hottest part of the summer. The outstanding event of the 
summer was a friendship formed with Viscount Kuki, the 
ex-Daimio, 2 of Sanda. One August day the Davis family 



1 A hill rising on the eastern edge of the city. 

2 Daimio, a feudal lord with landed and proprietary rights. 



122 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

made an excursion to the castle town of Sanda, the mother 
and daughter riding in a chair slung between two poles, 
which the father had built for such outings. While resting 
in the Sanda hotel, the Daimio's wife called upon Mrs. 
Davis with a present of a watermelon. A little later, the 
Viscount and his family came up to Arima to spend a few 
weeks and the acquaintance deepened into friendship. The 
Japanese noble called upon the missionary every day, and 
asked questions regarding Christianity and western science 
and customs. 

While at Arima, Viscount Kuki made frequent presents 
to Mr. Davis, among them a huge crane, five feet in 
height. The bird was supposed to be a delicacy, but was 
entirely too tough to be eaten, so the cook was ordered to 
carefully dispose of it. 

Early the next morning, a policeman appeared with the 
long-legged bird, stating that he had taken it from a coun- 
tryman who could not explain how he had got it. Mr. 
Davis received several congratulations over the recovery of 
the Daimio's gift, and he began to fear lest he might have 
to eat it after all. At nightfall, he told the cook to bury 
the bird, this time in the mountain behind the village. 
While the family were at breakfast the next day, a wood- 
cutter called with the bedraggled crane upon his back, 
saying that he had found it covered with leaves in the 
woods up the road, and begged leave to return the honor- 
able gift of the Daimio of Sanda. Late that night a 
foreigner with a curiously shaped parcel under his arm and 
a spade on his shoulder might have been seen climbing 
through the Arima hills to a secluded spot, and the Dai- 
mio's gift did not appear again. 

During September, at the request of some young men of 
the town, the Davis family spent three weeks in Sanda, 
during which period twenty curious young men came three 
times a day to listen and to ask questions about Chris- 



FIRST YEARS IN JAPAN 123 

tianity and science. " We studied the Gospel of John, and 
though I could only speak in a stammering way, I did my 
best to make the meaning clear." After returning to Kobe 
Mr. Davis bought a horse and for more than a year rode 
the twenty miles to Sanda each Saturday night, returning 
on Monday. Arriving at his customary hotel in Sanda 
one night in a pouring rain, he was refused admittance; and 
a refusal greeting him at each hotel in the place, it was 
evident that opposition had developed to the " Jesus way." 
"It began to look as if I should have to return. I was 
leading my horse in the darkness, on a back street, praying 
for guidance, and, finally, knocked at an unknown gate. 
It proved to be a small Buddhist temple. The widow and 
her son who kept the place were so poor that they were 
glad of the rent I was willing to pay. I spent the night 
there, and there we had our meetings for six months. I had 
the main room of the temple, eating, sleeping and preach- 
ing before the images and sacred relics. 

" The following autumn, Dr. Berry rented a small house 
for a hospital and clinic in Sanda, and we had a room in 
that for our meetings. I extemporized a wood stove and 
had a comfortable room where the young men came every 
Saturday evening to see me. They came again Sunday 
morning, afternoon and evening, and after the evening ser- 
mon they would stay until late, talking together. In this 
way I learned a good deal of the language, the national 
viewpoint, and found many points of contact." 

He was enthusiastic over the splendid medical work of 
Dr. Berry in Kobe and Sanda, and urged the appointment 
of more medical missionaries, as indispensable aids in open- 
ing the field. The next Autumn he opened an English 
school for young men in Kobe and for nine months taught 
English and mathematics, since no direct Christian teaching 
was possible in Kobe at this time. The students paid all 
the expenses of the school, which finally enrolled one hun- 



124 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

dred young men. " April 15th, 1873, our school has kept 
up its number to over seventy; ever since we started, five 
months ago. Mr. Greene has a Bible service in the school, 
and we hope, soon, to have a suitable room in connection 
with our book-store where a daily service can be held, but 
the opposition is too great just at present." The reputa- 
tion of the foreign school found its way to Osaka, where 
an official invited Mr. Davis to open a school at a salary 
of two hundred and fifty dollars a month. This, of course, 
he was unable to do. 

The Sanda work had a vital connection with the begin- 
nings of Kobe Women's College, for with the arrival of 
Misses Dudley and Talcott, in the spring of 1873, a girls' 
school was opened in the home of the Sanda Daimio, who 
had now moved to Kobe. 

Viscount Kuki boldly identified himself with the Chris- 
tian movement, placing his own children and relatives in 
the care of the American ladies. This was the nucleus of 
the present Kobe College. 

During the second summer at Arima, the baby's milk 
supply necessitated the taking of a cow into the mountains 
with the Davis family. At the entrance to the village the 
cow and her attendant were stopped. When an explana- 
tion was demanded, he was told, " No cows allowed in our 
village now; cows bring flies; flies bring discomfort; no 
cows allowed in this village now." The diary records that 
the cow was stabled in the " suburbs." 

There was a great need of simple Christian literature, for, 
as yet, none of the Gospels had been printed completely 
in Japanese, although the Gospel of John appeared during 
that summer. There were no available tracts. 

One day, under the maples beside the Arima waterfall, 
Mr. Davis, in broken Japanese, wrote a simple story of the 
loving heavenly Father who had created man and who sent 
his Son to show him his love and to die for him. His 



FIRST YEARS IN JAPAN 125 

struggles to get this tract put into the vernacular were 
characteristic of many attempts of that early period, when, 
as yet, no vocabulary for the expression of Christian truth 
had been formulated. 

His teacher was told to translate this story into such 
simple Japanese that anyone could read and understand it. 
" When my teacher had copied this into Japanese, I asked 
him to revise it, using simpler forms of expression, but it 
came back in such high Chinese that none of the common 
people could read it. I then asked another scholar of the 
pure Japanese language to put it in such form that the 
masses could read it and, after another month, it came 
back about fifty degrees higher yet. I then took my orig- 
inal draft, sat down by my teacher and fought it over word 
by. word and sentence by sentence, demanding that the 
words that could be understood by the greatest number of 
common people should be used, and, after two months 
more, it was ready for the block cutter." This tract, the 
" Chika Michi," 1 was the first original tract prepared in 
Japan and within ten years had reached a circulation of 
over one hundred thousand copies. 

The dearth of devotional music was so great that Mr. 
Davis translated a number of hymns, which were pub- 
lished in the first hymn-book used in the Congregational 
churches of Japan. A few of them have been revised and 
are still in use, the best known being, " Jehoba wo home 
yo," or, " Praise Jehovah." 

The missionaries were constantly reminded that the gov- 
ernment restrictions upon Christianity were not a dead 
letter. As late as February, 1875, Mr. Davis gave fifty 
copies of his tracts to one of the Kobe Christians, Mr. 
Imamura Kenkichi, to distribute among friends at his 
home in Kanazawa. 

A little later, the Governor of Ishikawa Prefecture made 

*The Short Way (of Knowing the True God). 



126 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

a requisition upon the Governor of Hyogo Prefecture for the 
arrest and detention of Mr. Imamura, upon the charge of 
having distributed books of the evil sect called Chris- 
tian. After an imprisonment of many months this fearless 
man took charge of the bookstore and press of the Ameri- 
can Board Mission in Kobe, and later founded the " Fukuin 
sha " l and the " Keisei sha," l which for twenty-five years 
as an independent Japanese company has been publishing 
an increasing volume of Christian literature for the empire. 

During the winter of 1873 to '74, the first Christian 
prayer-meeting was held in central Japan. Five or six 
young men, together with the wife of one of the number, 
whom Mr. Greene had been teaching, became interested in 
the Truth. " One evening we met them in Mr. Greene's 
house and they all prayed. It was the first time that we 
had heard Japanese offer a Christian prayer, and formed a 
scene never to be forgotten." The next spring, April 19th, 
1874, a church of eleven members was organized in Kobe, 
several of the Osaka Christians walking the twenty miles 
from that city to be present. One month later, a church of 
seven members was organized in Osaka. These were the 
first churches of the Kumi-ai, or Congregational body, in 
Japan. 

The constitution of these churches was very simple. 
They were called " Churches of Christ," and it was de- 
cided to take the creed of the Evangelical Alliance. Mr. 
Davis was asked to prepare the first draft of the covenant 
and rules of membership. Because of the broad basis of the 
new churches he felt that assent to creed should not be 
made test of membership, and so drew up the questions for 
the candidates for baptism and the following church cove- 
nant, which was adopted by these churches and which has 
been, with a few changes, incorporated into the covenant of 
the Kumi-ai churches of Japan and is still used: — 

1 The Gospel Company. 



FIRST YEARS IN JAPAN 127 

11 Believing in the Lord Jesus Christ, we desire to form 
ourselves into a church, called by His name, in order that 
we may publicly worship God, study God's word, obey 
God's laws and ordinances, mutually help each other in 
the Christian life, and spread abroad the knowledge of 
salvation in our country and in the world, 

11 Desiring to be united in faith and love with all in the 
world who love our Lord Jesus Christ, we adopt the fol- 
lowing as the basis of our faith : — (here follows the creed 
of the Evangelical Alliance.)" 

Following the questions to Candidates for Baptism, the 
covenant reads: — " We covenant with each other and with 
these new members, that we will live henceforth, not for 
ourselves, but for the Saviour who died for us; that while 
loyal to our country and our government, we will make it 
our most important business every day, directly or indi- 
rectly, to teach others about this Saviour, and to lead them 
to follow Him; that we will not knowingly engage in any 
business, or do anything which will hinder our influence in 
this great work; that we will keep the Sabbath sacred to 
the public and private worship of God and the study and 
teaching of his word. And now praying that God will 
keep us all faithful unto death and greatly increase the 
number of believers, we give the hand of welcome to the 
new members as a token of our love and fellowship." 

This covenant shows that from the outset stress was laid 
upon the responsibility of church members for spreading 
the Gospel. This lay activity became a chief characteristic 
of these first groups of Christians and an effective source 
of growth of the Kumi-ai Church. When the question of 
organizing a church arose in Sanda, some of the Christians 
considered it premature, for, as they said, " We cannot 
all yet preach well." 

The membership of the Kobe Church doubled in the 
first year. " The church now numbers thirty- two mem- 



128 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

bers," wrote Mr. Davis in the spring of 1875, " twenty men 
and twelve women. Of these twenty men, thirteen have, 
from the time they were received into the church, been 
preachers of the word, not paid as helpers, by the mission, 
but going out to preach on the Sabbath and during the 
week at their own charge. Regular weekly preaching is 
kept up by them in five different places, and monthly, 
in about as many more. They go on foot to do this, or 
have paid for carriage hire, or other expenses, out of their 
very limited means, refusing foreign money." 

Early in 1873, an invitation came to Mr. Davis from the 
five American Board missionaries in Osaka, to join them in 
the work in that great industrial center. He felt, however, 
that on account of the steadily widening doors in Kobe 
and Sanda, he was not justified in changing his field. 
Already, too, there was maturing the conviction that the 
training of workers for leadership in the Japanese church 
was the first work toward which he should direct his 
energies and for the development of this plan, the nucleus 
of young men that the missionaries in Kobe had gathered 
around them offered excellent material. He now began to 
work more definitely upon this educational plan. 

The Sanda work was steadily pushed during 1874. The 
dispensary and hospital of Dr. Berry had greatly increased 
the hold of Christianity upon the town, and the work for 
women took on considerable proportions. In the early 
summer of 1875, Mr. Davis organized a church in Sanda, 
the third of the Kumi-ai group. Of the twenty men who 
had studied with him, more than half became Christians, 
and though most of them eventually moved away from 
Sanda, they became valued workers in other parts of Japan. 

Although the edicts against Christianity had been re- 
moved in 1872, it was still very difficult to find a place 
where the Gospel could be preached. " I went with some 
of the young men of the church to the towns between 



FIRST YEARS IN JAPAN 129 

Kobe and Osaka, Sumiyoshi, Nishino-miya and Kanzaki, 
but even the tea houses refused us permission to use a room 
to speak to those who came to see us about Christ. Meet- 
ings were, however, held in private houses, where a few of 
the neighbors came in to hear." 

The change from the free, breezy life of the Wyoming 
plains to the conventions, suspicion and red tape of his new 
environment was necessitating severe adjustments to the 
missionary, adjustments which must either make or mar 
character. Miss Eliza Talcott, one of the founders of Kobe 
College, who lived at this time in the Davis home, wrote 
of him: " Mr. Davis' smile wins your heart at once. He 
has grown very much in grace this last year; his natural 
impatience and restless hurry have given place to a patient 
restfulness, which with all his energy behind it, makes him 
a tower of strength. I think he realizes his power, too, in 
a measure, but there is not the slightest trace of conceit. 
He says that sometimes his great joy unfits him for the 
work. The fact is, he is exceedingly enthusiastic and lives 
faster than anybody I know." 

The birth of a second daughter, Genevieve, and the 
arrival of Mrs. Davis' sister, Mrs. E. T. Doane of Micro- 
nesia, necessitated removal into a large Japanese house, 
farther from the foreign settlement. " Robbers were 
troublesome through this winter. One night I was awak- 
ened by a noise in the adjoining room. Taking my pistol, 
I entered the room and by the bright moonlight saw a man 
sorting over clothing which was scattered in every direction. 
Another stood outside with a bundle under his arm. As I 
entered, both men sprang for the street and I after them. 
I fired through the window at the man on the roof, who 
seemed most likely to escape. He dropped his bundle and 
both men jumped. I followed them, off the roof, across 
the garden and into the street, firing as I ran, and on my 
return, picked up a good deal of clothing which they had 



130 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

dropped. I didn't want to hit them, only thoroughly 
frighten them. We were not visited by robbers again that 
year." When one of his colleagues protested against his 
use of firearms upon the Japanese and urged prayer as a 
measure of defence, he replied that he believed that prayer, 
backed up by a good revolver, was very effective on Kobe 
robbers. 

In this home Mrs. Davis began to conduct family wor- 
ship in Japanese, reading the Gospels with the servants 
and a few neighbors who came in each day to hear about 
the new faith. Several of these people were afterward bap- 
tized. One of the senior pastors, still preaching in the 
Kumi-ai Church, here found his first interest in Chris- 
tianity. 

The turbulent political and social atmosphere of 1872, 
made the future of missionary work in Japan extremely 
uncertain. A reaction from the first interest in foreign 
affairs had set in. Assassinations of liberal political leaders 
were frequent and ruffians were hired to attack and insult 
foreigners. He wrote: "You will conclude that we have a 
changeful atmosphere in Japan. It could hardly be other- 
wise. When reforms are taking place among a great 
people changes come as the ebb and flow of a tide, as 
first the radical and then the conservative party gains 
the upper hand. This is an encouraging sign, if only, in 
the quick succession of changes, the cause be gaining 
ground. 

" There is no question that religious freedom is gaining 
ground here. We must not mind the little gusts that 
sweep hither and thither across our quarter deck, but 
rather look up at the steady trade winds that fill our top- 
sails, all the time set in the same direction. Instead of 
recent events modifying our last appeal for more men, in 
my view, they add force to it. ... I want to call just as 
loudly as I can, so that very soon, when the crisis is on 



FIRST YEARS IN JAPAN 131 

us and we are overrun, swamped for want of men, I can 
feel that I did my duty." 

In September, 1872, the first convention of Protestant 
missionaries in Japan was held in Yokohama. The sessions 
met in the chapel of Dr. Hepburn's dispensary, and were 
attended by nearly all the missionaries in the country. 

This conference recommended the appointment of a union 
committee for Bible translation and adopted a plan which 
should secure identity of name and organization for the 
Japanese church, " that name being as catholic as the 
Church of Christ and the organization being that wherein 
the government of each church shall be by the ministry 
and eldership of the same, with the concurrence of the 
brethren." The name " Church of Christ " was adopted, 
the creed of the Evangelical Alliance was taken, and it was 
agreed to appoint and ordain a pastor, elders and deacons 
in each church. 

It was hoped by the members of the American Board 
Mission that in this way the churches of Japan would all 
be united in a federated union, with a unanimity of name, 
creed and officers, and that, while each church or group 
would be free to conduct its internal affairs independently, 
they would all meet, each year, for conference and prayer 
and for planning for the evangelization of the empire. 
After a few years, differences in interpretation of this union 
arose; the Presbyterian and Reformed Churches under- 
stood it to be an organic union, giving the general confer- 
ence full ecclesiastical power. 

Some of the other churches, among them those of the 
American Board Mission, could not approve a union which 
implied a central governing power, and thus the first at- 
tempt at church union in Japan failed. 

Mr. Davis believed with his colleagues of the committee 
appointed to deal with the union question, that a close 
federation of the principal churches, rather than an ecclesi- 



132 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

astical union, would be best adapted to meet the needs 
of the highly organized political and social atmosphere of 
Japan. He wrote to the committee representing the Pres- 
byterian group: " I consider that a heart union exists 
between your churches and ours, one which may drop 
denominational names, and, so far as possible, denomina- 
tional peculiarities, and which includes the close fraterniza- 
tion of the churches. This would make apparent to the 
world what is a fact, but what is too often hid under the 
cloak of sectarianism, viz., — the oneness of all Christians 
in Christ, their Head. ... I deeply regret that the union 
plan has failed, and earnestly hope that we may have, at 
least, a yearly meeting for prayer, conference and com- 
munion in which every organization of Christians in the 
empire may be represented. 

Yours in the best of bonds," 

Though the union effort of 1872 miscarried, it gave an 
impetus to cooperative action in mission work that has 
largely influenced the Christian movement in Japan. 
Among its direct and indirect results may be mentioned 
the work of the Bible Translation Committee, the general 
district conference held annually in Osaka for the central 
section of Japan, the triennial conference of all Japanese 
churches, the Council of Missions uniting the Presbyterian 
and Reformed Churches, the union of the Methodist and 
other affiliated groups, and the Council of Federated Mis- 
sions which has, of recent years, come into a large place 
of service in the Christian work of the empire. 

Upon the promulgation of the Edict of Religious Free- 
dom in the spring of 1873, Mr. Davis wrote to Boston: 
" The whole country is now opened to the entrance of 
foreigners and of Christianity. To all human appearances, 
unless we are speedily and largely reinforced, the golden 
opportunity for Japan will be lost. Now when we need 



FIRST YEARS IN JAPAN 133 

twenty fully trained men, we have only five on the ground 
and most of us only beginners. God will take care of his 
work, but if we fail to call for men we fail to do our duty." 

In May, 1873, another visit to Kyoto and the neighbor- 
ing Lake Biwa basin renewed his conviction of the neces- 
sity of manning the interior. " I am deeply impressed 
with the populousness of this Lake Biwa basin, where you 
may count several hundred villages nestled among the river 
valleys watering the lake, and with the kindly disposition 
of the people toward us and the universal desire to have 
the country opened to the world. As I saw this surging 
population and wandered all one afternoon among the 
beautiful temples east of Kyoto, and found the paths lead- 
ing to them grass-grown, and the buildings almost de- 
serted, I could not keep from praying for the men to go 
up and possess this land." 

He now began to write to the American Board and to 
the church papers, in vehement tones, emphasizing the 
unprecedented opportunity facing the Christian church in 
Japan. The closeness of the nations seemed to him a 
direct challenge to a new conception of responsibility on 
the part of the more favored peoples: the jealousy of 
American Christians for the development of the home field, 
a pretence which could not bear the light of the facts. The 
accessibility of the dense population around Osaka and 
Kyoto; the eagerness of the people to hear of Christianity; 
the fact that the country would now be open to foreign 
residence, with the ban removed from the foreign religion, 
the handful of missionaries on the field and the immense 
disparity in the number of workers in America and Japan, 
were realities which rested upon his heart night and day 
and gave him no peace. "The 'cannot' which we hear 
from some in the United States is simply a tremendous 
1 will not,' for which God holds us responsible. If we wait 
until America is regenerated before we work for Africa and 



134 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

Asia we will wait forever, since the millennium will not 
come to one nation alone. God is bringing the nations all 
together; they stand side by side; the man who works for 
Japan or China or Africa today, works for America; works 
for the world." 

From Arima, in the summer of 1874, he wrote: "The 
work is opening on all sides and pressing upon us. I have 
my family here in the mountains again, but cannot run 
away from work. I preach at Kobe or Sanda every Sab- 
bath, and have a service at my house here every day. 
People are here from a hundred miles around for the baths, 
which provides a grand chance for scattering the truth." 

In the autumn of 1874, Mr. Davis opened the training 
class for Christian workers which he had borne constantly 
upon his mind during the preceding year. A few of the 
students were from among the men he had taught in Sanda; 
more were from the Kobe church, some of whom he de- 
scribed as " sure to make grand workers," while a little 
later several young men from Osaka entered the class. 
Dec. 23rd, " These twelve men are the nucleus of a small 
training school which it has been my blessed privilege to 
start. The students are very regular in attendance. We 
have finished reading Acts and are now half way through 
Romans. I also give them lectures on the History of 
Christianity and in Theology, and Mr. Gulick has a class 
in Moral Science." 

From the outset of this little school Mr. Davis felt 
the difficulty of meeting the needs of the situation or the 
desires of the students for thorough preparation. The 
brighter men were not satisfied with the mission school as 
a preparation for the Christian ministry and showed their 
unrest by making plans for going to America. To hold stu- 
dents in a school with no equipment and a staff of three 
missionaries was a serious problem. Furthermore, to stu- 
dents unable to go abroad the rising educational standards 



FIRST YEARS IN JAPAN 135 

of the government colleges presented attractions with which 
an unsubsidized mission school could not compete. "Un- 
less we can start a thorough school at once, we lose to our 
work most of the Christian young men around us and our 
hands are tied. More than this, our whole mission sees 
that we must have a Christian college if we would train 
up a ministry that can successfully grapple with the mate- 
rialism of the government institutions. It is our only hope 
and we may as well face it from the outset." 

Efforts toward the solution of this problem, concurring 
with the return of Mr. Neesima to Japan, led directly to 
the founding of the Doshisha. 

The plan for a full collegiate department in connection 
with the training school did not meet with approval in 
Boston. Some of the Prudential Committee considered a 
secular course outside of the province of real missionary 
activity, and others feared that even though desirable, such 
a college would draw into its faculty too many of the 
missionaries. It was further urged that the rapidly growing 
system of government education should provide for the sec- 
ular training of the students and that the course of the 
training school was sufficient to prepare men for the minis- 
try in Japan. Mr. Davis felt deeply upon the necessity 
of full college training for the young men who were to be 
the first representatives of Christianity to their country- 
men. " Our aim here is to have all of our ministers and 
ordained clergy, bishops, in the highest sense of the word, 
to oversee and counsel the busy lives of workers. It is 
this conception of the ministry which makes me feel that a 
Christian College in connection with our work is an early 
necessity. 

"It would be as unwise to ordain a man here without 
knowledge of science as it would be to ordain a backwoods- 
man in America." 

In the spring of 1875, he was asked to give a paper on 



136 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

the " Training of the Native Ministry" at the annual 
mission meeting. The following points, which formed the 
basis of his policy through the years of constructive work 
in the Doshisha, were emphasized: 

" 1. Get the young men. To do this we must have a 
school which will attract and hold them. 

2. There must be some plan by which such students 
can support themselves while in school. 

3. They must have an expectation of support after they 
enter the ministry. 

4. We must all be filled with and taught by the Holy 
Spirit, if we would lead these young men to a full conse- 
cration of themselves to this work and to success in it." 

Following up the outline of policy contained in this 
paper, he wrote to Boston a clear statement of the condi- 
tion of their students, showing that the majority were of 
the Samurai class, which had lately been dispossessed of its 
feudal rights and sources of income and had never been 
trained to work. Upon this basis he asked the Board for 
an appropriation of $200.00 to enable special work to be 
given to needy students. He spoke of the great demands 
upon the pockets of the missionaries and of the way many 
were giving more than their tithe to save critical situations 
which arose, and closed his letter with the words, " But 
whether tithes will found a school or not, I do not know." 



Chapter XI 

THE FOUNDING OF THE DOSHISHA 

TNLIKE the history of some other similar institutions, 
the birth of the Doshisha may be traced to several dis- 
^•^ tinct sources. Widely differing in origin, these lines of 
influence were brought into cooperative activity through a re- 
markable chain of circumstances, a story that can scarcely be 
paralleled in the annals of Christian education. The grow- 
ing conviction of a group of American missionaries in Kobe 
that a training school for the equipment of their Japanese 
co-workers should be established was one of these converg- 
ing influences. A more romantic and dynamic source of 
this great school may be found in the spiritual vision and 
dauntless determination of a Japanese boy to know the 
truth and to follow it wherever it might lead. 

When the fleet of Commodore Perry steamed into Yedo 
Bay, in 1853, a seed was sown in the heart of a ten-year- 
old lad that was to bear, when full grown, the greatest 
Christian university in the Far East. Neesima was the 
son of a retainer of Prince Itakura, a daimio of the Prov- 
ince of Kosuke, near Tokyo. Living in Tokyo, at the 
court of his lord, he had seen the black, foreign war-ships 
and developed a longing to learn the language and customs 
of the new civilization that had impinged upon his native 
shores. At fifteen, in a Chinese history, written by an 
American missionary he read, " In the beginning God 
created the heaven and the earth." This statement an- 
swered for him an unsolved mystery. He reasoned, "If God 
made the earth, he made me. If he made me, then I must 
be thankful to him: I must believe in him and I must be 
upright against him." He prayed, " O if you have eyes, 

137 



138 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

look upon me, if you have ears, listen to me." With an 
intense desire to know more about God, he prayed to him 
daily for six years before the opportunity came. Since 
the author of the book in which he had read of God was 
an American, he reasoned that if he could get away to 
America he could learn about the new religion and civiliza- 
tion which he felt that his country needed. With this 
ambition to reach America strong within him, he faced 
the question of ways and means. Parents and feudal lord 
refused the boy's request to go to Hakodate, the northern 
port where he hoped to come into contact with foreign 
influences. Moreover, for three hundred years there had 
been a death penalty fixed for the crime of leaving the 
country; but death had few terrors for Neesima: he was 
in quest of life, and with the daily prayer, " O God, please 
help me to reach my great aim," upon his lips, he resolved 
to place himself in exile. 

On a black night in July, 1864, the American schooner 
" Berlin " was weighing anchor in Hakodate harbor for 
Shanghai. Presently a sampan came alongside; a slight 
figure leaped up the chains and disappeared in the vessel's 
hold; government officials boarded the ship, an inspection 
followed, clearance papers were given, and with a freshen- 
ing breeze upon her quarter, the " Berlin " slipped her 
mooring and stood out for the open sea and the far-off 
China port. The Japanese harbor master registered a 
" foreign devil ship " cleared for the China coast, nor did 
he nor any soul in all the land dream that in the dirty 
hold of a foreign ship there left Japan that night one 
who would set the standards of Christian education for 
the empire. 

From Shanghai, young Neesima worked his way, for a 
year, on the American clipper ship, " Wild Rover," to 
Boston. Here he was found by Mr. Alpheus Hardy, the 
owner of the vessel, who took him into his own home and 




J. H. NEESIMA 



THE FOUNDING OF THE DOSHISHA 139 

gave him every educational advantage that New England 
could afford. From Andover Academy he passed to Am- 
herst College, and was in the midst of his course at An- 
dover Theological Seminary when the Iwakura Diplomatic 
Embassy was sent by Japan to America and Europe to 
study western civilization. Hearing of Neesima, Prince 
Iwakura sent him a summary command to act as interpre- 
ter for the embassy. Neesima, the outlaw from his country, 
promised his services in return for exemption from punish- 
ment, for religious freedom and for the privilege of observ- 
ing the Sabbath, and for over a year he travelled with the 
Embassy on terms of close intimacy through most of the 
capitals of Europe. 

This experience not only won for the Japanese student 
the esteem and confidence of the great men (among them 
Kido, Okubo, I to and Tanaka) who were to return to head 
departments of the new government of Japan, but it en- 
abled him to make a detailed study of the finest educa- 
tional systems of the world. Never was the divine Hand 
more clearly seen in shaping the course of a life. For with- 
out the confidence of these powerful leaders and the broad 
view of education which Neesima secured in journeying 
with them, the Doshisha, as a Japanese school, the product 
of Japanese faith and enterprise, would not have been born. 
Neesima prepared a paper which was taken as the report of 
the Embassy upon education, and which afterward, in a 
modified form, became the basis of the system of education 
adopted by the empire. 

Though strongly pressed by Prince Iwakura to return 
to Japan, with the assurance of high political preferment, 
Neesima resolutely declined and returned, in 1873, to An- 
dover Seminary, where he was graduated the following 
year. 

He passed a most satisfactory examination and was or- 
dained as an evangelist, the first of his race to receive this 



140 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

office. He was also appointed a corresponding member of the 
Japan mission of the American Board of Commissioners 
for Foreign Missions. 

Neesima was now ready to return to Japan, but for one 
great unfulfilled purpose. With all that he had received of 
the blessings of Christian education and influence, there 
had grown the longing to create in his own land for his 
countrymen, the opportunities that he had himself enjoyed. 
And thus he was led to make that famous appeal for a 
Christian college in Japan, upon the platform of the Amer- 
ican Board meeting at Rutland, Vt., in October, 1874. 

The occasion is a memorable one in the annals of the 
Board, the large Christian audience; the intense earnest- 
ness of the young Japanese, pleading with broken voice 
and overflowing eyes the need of his people for Christian 
education, and the evident nervousness of the Board secre- 
taries as the speaker finally exclaimed, " I cannot go back 
to Japan without the money to found a Christian college, 
and I am going to stand here until I get it." He had 
barely finished when Governor Page, of Vermont, sprang 
to his feet and pledged a thousand dollars, Alpheus Hardy, 
William E. Dodge and others pledged five hundred dollars 
each, and in a few minutes nearly five thousand dollars 
was raised. 

Mr. Neesima reached Japan in December, 1874, a few 
weeks after the arrival of Secretary N. G. Clark's letter, 
announcing to the mission the gift for a training school. 
Earlier in the year the mission had sent an earnest invita- 
tion to Mr. Neesima to join its ranks, and now his return 
with $5,000 for a school seemed a miracle to those in the 
little circle who had been praying for some such result. 
God's hand was moving faster than the faith of his workers. 

Osaka, with its large population and central position, 
was a natural site for the new school. Mr. Neesima tried 
for several months to secure permission from the governor 



THE FOUNDING OF THE DOSHISHA 141 

to establish a college in that city. The governor told him 
that he approved of such a school in Osaka, but that no 
missionary should teach in it. Kobe, at this time a small 
trading port, offered few advantages as an educational 
center. With Kobe and Osaka out of the question, Kyoto 
seemed to be the only alternative, but it was preposterous 
to think of a Christian college in connection with Kyoto, 
for it was an interior city where no foreigner was allowed 
to reside. For a thousand years Kyoto had been the 
sacred center of Buddhism, the home of Japanese religion, 
art and culture. For an equal period it had boasted the 
imperial residence, the holy of holies, to which the heart of 
every Japanese had instinctively turned. Moreover, the 
old capital was away from the centers of work which the 
American Board Mission had opened, and as an interior 
city foreigners could have no property or residence rights 
there. 

The mission, at length, consented to the location of the 
school in Kyoto, if permission could be secured, and in 
the summer of 1875, Mr. Neesima went up to Kyoto to see 
if the impossible could be accomplished. But God had 
already been working mightily in Kyoto, preparing the way 
for the youth who had staked all on the chance of finding 
him, and preparing the way for the doubting mission. 
Kyoto had been opened for one hundred days during each 
of the two preceding summers for an exhibition of the 
city's products and wares. Members of the mission, visit- 
ing the exhibition, had met Mr. Yamamoto Kakuma, a 
blind counsellor of the Kyoto Fu, 1 and had interested him 
in Christian truth, and now when Mr. Neesima presented 
his plan for the establishment of a Christian school in 
Kyoto, this influential man gave it his warm approval. He 
went further and interested the governor of the city in the 

i " Fu," a designation for the largest municipal government in Japan, embracing 
jurisdiction over surrounding country districts. 



142 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

plan. Governor Makimura, however, expressed doubts as 
to the possibility of securing imperial sanction for the 
school. 

In June, Mr. Davis went to Kyoto with Mr. Neesima 
and examined a site situated in the northern part of the 
city, near the palace grounds, with a large temple grove 
adjoining. The land, formerly the property of the daimio 
of Satsuma, now belonged to Mr. Yamamoto, the city 
counsellor. " June 10th, 1875, I am just back from a 
hurried visit to Kyoto. . . . The blind counsellor, whose 
friendship Mr. Gulick gained three years ago, and to whom 
Dr. Gordon gave a copy of Martyn's ' Evidence of Christian- 
ity,' and with whom Mr. Neesima had labored faithfully, 
sees the light. He can hardly rest day or night. He has 
had the New Testament, in Chinese, read through to him 
twice. The vice-governor is nearly as much interested 
as Yamamoto san, who, by the way, is the brains of the 
city government. They want a Christian school there, at 
once. Mr. Yamamoto owns five acres of land, which he 
will sell to the school for the nominal price of $550. God 
seems to be opening the way wonderfully in this .spiritual 
center of the empire. I hope to go there next September 
to begin work with Mr. Neesima." 

Since no foreign company could hold property in Kyoto, 
a Japanese corporation, whose charter members were 
Messrs. Neesima and Yamamoto, was organized for owning 
and controlling the school. The name " Doshisha," or 
11 One purpose Company," was taken as the title of the 
corporation and Mr. Davis was engaged as the first foreign 
teacher. While the terms of incorporation provided that 
the power of making regulations and the control of the 
school should be vested in the hands of the corporation, 
it was stated that Mr. Davis should act as adviser to the 
corporation and that his judgment should be consulted in 
the management and affairs of the school. 



THE FOUNDING OF THE DOSHISHA 143 

Although the approval of the local government for the 
location of the school in Kyoto had been received, the 
sanction of the central government was necessary. Messrs. 
Neesima and Davis drew up a formal petition for the loca- 
tion of the school and a foreign teacher in Kyoto, to be 
presented to the Tokyo authorities. The Governor of 
Kyoto urged Mr. Neesima to go at once to the capital and 
use every possible pressure in favor of the petition, without 
which it was certain to be ignored. Mr. Neesima left the 
governor's palace, hired two swift runners, and by travelling 
night and day, with frequent changes, covered the three 
hundred and twenty miles to Tokyo in advance of the 
petition. Again the divine Factor enters the story. Vis- 
count Tanaka, now the Minister of Education for the 
empire, had been Mr. Neesima's most intimate friend in 
the Japanese Embassy in Europe. He told him, at first, 
that it would be impossible to grant permission for a 
Christian school in Kyoto; it was regarded as the sacred 
city of the empire and he foresaw great opposition and 
prejudice on the part of the people. During three days 
Mr. Neesima, undaunted, had repeated conferences with 
the Minister of Education, as well as with other members 
of the Cabinet, to most of whom he was personally well 
known, with the result that Viscount Tamaka finally told 
him that if he would be very careful not to arouse the 
opposition of the people he would allow the opening of the 
school. The permission for the residence of a missionary 
was delayed several months, a period of great strain and 
anxiety for all who were interested in the school, for this 
was the technicality upon which its opponents relied to 
block the whole plan. 

During the summer, Viscount Tamaka, Minister of Edu- 
cation, visited Mr. Neesima in Kyoto, to press the claims 
of his country's service upon him. For three days and two 
nights the two friends sat in the humble Kyoto cottage, 



144 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

the imperial representative urging the need of the nation 
for Mr. Neesima's abilities; the young Christian resolutely 
holding to his life ideal of Christian education. Cleverly 
did the great official argue the signal opportunity for prop- 
agating Christian ideals which high government office 
could bring. For three days Neesima's simple reply was: — 
" My life is not my own; it belongs to Jesus Christ. Many 
years ago I solemnly swore to devote my entire time and 
effort to His cause. I cannot take back my words and my 
heart. I cannot do it." " As twilight was purpling on 
the historic hills of Kyoto, fragrant with the memory of 
a thousand years of culture, Viscount Tanaka rose. He 
had reached the end of his patience. He was a simple- 
hearted man, a patriot, who could not understand the lan- 
guage of the man of religion. Without the slightest hesita- 
tion he would have sacrificed all the Buddhas in the world, 
if they could add even a trifle to the power of the state. 
He was disgusted with the attitude of Neesima. " Well, 
Neesima," he said, " I am going. I am sorry. You are 
indeed the slave of Jesus Christ. Good bye." 

From the very first, Mr. Neesima had received from Mr. 
Davis the most sympathetic support and intimate counsel 
in all matters relating to the opening of a collegiate insti- 
tute. The problems of his training class in Kobe had led 
him to champion unreservedly any plan that looked toward 
improved training facilities for Christian workers, and now 
when the time came to allocate a foreign teacher in the 
new school, Mr. Davis was the choice of the mission. On 
the 19th of October, 1875, in company with his family, he 
entered Kyoto and settled in a wing of the old Yanagiwara 
" yashiki," 1 on the east side of the Palace. This dilapi- 
dated official residence of an imperial retainer, boasting 
one hundred rooms and three hundred and fifty doors and 

1 " Yashiki," a large residence or palace of an important retainer, in this case 
himself a Daimio. 



THE FOUNDING OF THE DOSHISHA 145 

windows, was set apart for his use. " Nov. 3rd. Events 
have crowded out all time for writing since our arrival. 
The old house, a part of which we occupy, has not been 
opened since the Mikado moved to Tokyo, eight years ago, 
and the mats were so worm-eaten that many of them fell 
to pieces when lifted up. The floors, sills and supports 
were rotten in many places and had to be renewed. By 
dint of the hardest kind of work and pushing carpenters, 
coolies and blacksmiths, who knew nothing of the way 
foreigners want things, we got the bed-room, sitting room 
dining room and pantry partially inhabitable last Saturday 
night, and stoves (made from an old steam-boat funnel 
cut into sections) put up in the bedroom, sitting room and 
kitchen. This involved the putting up of over one hundred 
feet of stove piping. As our little boy was born Monday 
morning, it proved that we were thus far settled none too 
soon. During this transition period, the children took 
heavy colds. If I had to fix over an old Japanese house 
every year of my life I would try to be patient, but I 
would pray that the days might be shortened, although 
such a prayer would probably not be necessary. 

" Nov. 18th. We have in the house on Teramachi, * 
which we have rented for the school, sixteen well-lighted 
rooms, nearly all matted, for fourteen dollars a month. 
We are to have our house for six dollars a month, though 
no written agreement is made. I have urged it again and 
again, but things move slowly here. Our grounds around 
the house and the quiet of the place are all that could be 
desired. I have learned that the Shinto and Buddhist 
priests in the city sent a petition to the Department of 
Religion in Yedo, soon after we came up here, to have this 
heresy stopped. Nearly fifty people came in the rain yes- 
terday to hear the truth." 

When it became known through the city that a charter 

i *J Teramachi," or temple street, bounding the Imperial park on the east. 



146 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

for a Christian school had been granted and that a Chris- 
tian missionary was to live in Kyoto, the twelve thousand 
Buddhist and Shinto priests held mass meetings and made 
such a commotion as the old city had not seen for many 
years. The Hongwanji 1 priest paid almost daily visits to 
the governor, loaded with costly presents, and presented 
petition after petition that the hateful movement be 
stamped out at its beginning. The foreign teachers in the 
city schools did their best to prejudice the governor against 
the new enterprise. A school to oppose the teachings of 
the Doshisha was organized by the Buddhists and foreign- 
ers were engaged to teach. A Dutch physician, employed 
in the city hospital, expressed it as his opinion, that 
Neesima and Davis might as well try to throw Mt. Hiei 
into Lake Biwa as to attempt to start a Christian school 
in Kyoto. 

The organized pressure that was brought to bear upon 
Governor Makimura now began to show in various ways; 
His daily visits to the home of his blind counsellor ceased. 
Mr. Yamamoto's sister, a leading teacher in the Girls' 
School of the city, who had been for some time very 
friendly with the missionaries, was discharged, and, finally, 
on November 19th, the owner of the house which had been 
rented for the Doshisha sent word that he would have to 
break his contract, although advance rent had been paid 
and possession had been taken of the building. The situa- 
tion looked very black. Nov. 19th, in Mr. Davis' 
diary, we find: — "What the result of all this is to be, 
God only knows, The acorn is in the bottle, however, 
and it will, in time, with God's blessing, split the bottle. 
... It is a great consolation to be able to leave it all to 
Him whose work it is. Yesterday we had thirteen in the 
morning and twelve in the evening. Three Buddhist priests 

1 " Hongwanji," one of the largest and most powerful Buddhist sects, with head- 
quarters in Kyoto. 



THE FOUNDING OF THE DOSHISHA 147 

came to our morning service, one of them much inter- 
ested." 

His ability to see and to enjoy the humorous side of the 
kaleidescopic events of his rapidly changing environment 
was a safety valve which he frequently indulged and which 
helped to balance the strain of his position. " I went 
down last Monday to see the things which are to be sent 
from Kyoto to the Centennial in Philadelphia, but found 
the buildings filled with a hundred or more city officials, 
dressed in ill-fitting black broadcloth suits, with swallow- 
tail coats, reaching nearly to their heels, and many of them 
with silk plug hats coming down over their ears, their 
clothes in wrinkles, with white shirts and white cravats; 
altogether the most comical sight I have ever seen in 
Japan." 

Those were anxious days, filled with consultation and 
planning with Messrs. Neesima and Yamamoto, and with 
preparations for the opening of the school. Although from 
the first Sabbath in Kyoto he had started a preaching 
service in his home, there was little time or strength left 
for evangelistic work, and now even when the whole issue 
of the school seemed in the balance, he felt that he was 
not fully meeting the opportunities about him. " I have, 
perhaps, come short of my duty, because I have been so 
busy; not opening my head about the 'Way,' only to 
those who come Sabbath morning, and giving away the 
first tract yesterday, after being here a month." 

Mr. Neesima made repeated applications to Tokyo for 
Dr. Wallace Taylor and Rev. D. L. Learned to reside in 
Kyoto, and for five months was greatly tried by the vexa- 
tious delays that were plainly the work of the vacillating 
governor. " Nov. 22nd, Mr. Neesima has been to 
see the governor several times during the last week, but 
always found him ' not at home.' Friday evening he called 
again and was told that he was too busy to see him; he 



148 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

went early Saturday morning and was told that it was too 
early; he went a little later and was told that the governor 
was about to start for his office; he inquired if he could see 
him in the evening and was told that he could not promise; 
finally, he went home and yesterday received a notice to 
appear at the castle this morning and explain what is 
meant by ' Bible,' in the list of studies in the curriculum." 

As a result of the Buddhist petition to Yedo, Mr. Nee- 
sima was told that the government was afraid of an up- 
rising in Kyoto headed by the Satsuma men, 1 and that 
because of this and of the strong Buddhist petition that 
Christianity should not be allowed to be taught in the 
school, he was requested to not teach the Bible, directly, 
in the Doshisha for the present. The governor said, how- 
ever, that Christianity could be taught under the name of 
11 Moral Science," and that the Bible could be taught and 
preaching conducted in the houses of the professors. When 
this was known, the owner of the school building removed 
his objection to the use of his property, and the opposition 
was quiescent for a time. 

Before Mr. Neesima's interview with the governor, Mr. 
Davis advised him on no account to promise not to teach 
the Bible in the school buildings. He urged that it was 
better to have no school building, or even to leave the 
city, than to make such a promise. Upon Mr. Neesima's 
return from the castle with the report that he had given 
his word to the governor that the Bible, for the present, 
should not be taught in the school building, his distress was 
very great. His first impulse was to pack up and leave 
the city, but he had signed a contract to teach only what 
his employers, Messrs. Neesima and Yamamoto sanctioned, 
and this promise, together with the fact that a little boy 
had been born into his home a few days before, held him 

1 " Satsuma," the powerful reactionary southern clan, which rebelled in 1877 under 
he leadership of General Saigo. 



THE FOUNDING OF THE DOSHISHA 149 

to his post. The Bible could still be taught in his home 
and Christianity in the school, under the name of Moral 
Science, and so with many misgivings and with the heaviest 
heart he had yet had in Japan, he decided to support the 
position of his Japanese colleague, hoping that it was God's 
way of opening the city. 

Of this critical experience, he wrote to Boston: — " While, 
at the first, I would rather have cut off my right hand 
than have made the promise that Mr. Neesima made, yet 
I now incline to think it was a wiser way than to have left 
the city; certainly wiser than to have remained here and 
to have tried to go against the orders of the Governor of 
Kyoto and the central government. So far as I know, the 
mission is a unit in approving the wisdom of this course." 
An Osaka colleague wrote: — " Dear Mr. Davis: We are 
filled with surprise and anxiety by the report of the new 
attitude of the government toward you and the school. 
You have our constant sympathy and prayers. We held 
a special meeting for prayer in your behalf on Wednesday. 
We are assured that the Christ, in obedience to whose 
command you stand among the Kyoto people with the 
Gospel message, will be with you in every hour and extrem- 
ity. You were doubtless wise in making the concessions 
which the governor requested. Having done this you stand 
on ground marked out by him, and are still at liberty 
to teach and preach the Gospel. With much love to all, 
Yours truly, M. L. Gordon." 

The Doshisha was formally opened on the morning of 
the 29th of November, at eight o'clock, in Mr. Neesima's 
home, with a prayer-meeting, in which all six pupils took 
part, after which all adjourned to the schoolhouse, where 
two other young men were received, making seven board- 
ing scholars and one day scholar. " I shall never forget 
Mr. Neesima's tender, tearful, earnest prayer in his house 



150 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

that morning as we began the school; all prayed from 
the heart." By the end of the first winter the number of 
students had increased to forty. 

It became evident, as time went on, that Mr. Neesima's 
promise to the governor, compromising as it seemed to 
many, was a far-sighted action. The very existence of the 
school, the ability to rent a building, and the securing of 
the needed passports for the residence of foreign teachers 
in the city, depended upon the good will of Governor 
Makimura. This official found himself in a hard position, 
caught between the pressure of the immensely powerful 
religious parties of his city and the orders of the central 
government. To offend him at this juncture would have 
been fatal. Moreover, the fact that he had put the matter 
in the form of a request and not a command placed the 
question upon a personal basis, which was impossible to 
gainsay without offending the deepest instincts of Japanese 
courtesy. 

This lesson in diplomacy, early in his life in Japan, was 
of the utmost value to Mr. Davis, whose nature was to 
face frontal attacks without compromise. He now learned 
how dear to the Oriental heart is the desire to " save 
face," and that sometimes the main issue of a question 
may be maintained, in spite of the sacrifice of outward 
forms. The governor of the city was not humiliated in the 
eyes of the people and remained a friend of the Doshisha, 
while on the other hand, the Christian school respected 
the wish of both central and local governments, without 
excluding the possibility of accomplishing its work, and with 
the door left open for a future satisfactory settlement of 
the question. 

His diary of this date says: — "We certainly do not 
want to stir up trouble here. We can better afford to 
wait and work quietly, until the people find out that we 
are not as bad as our reputation. Two years ago such a 



THE FOUNDING OF THE DOSHISHA 151 

turn as affairs have taken would have made me very 
anxious, but I have partly learned one lesson since coming 
to Japan, viz: ' In whatsoever state I am, therein to be 
content, and wait God's time and His way for everything.' 
We labor at a great disadvantage here as soon as there is 
any trouble, because we do everything in the name of a 
Japanese." 

His loyalty to Mr. Neesima throughout this critical 
time was absolute. He was in a position to realize the 
heroic service that Neesima was performing; the moral 
heroism involved in the single-handed fight his Japanese 
colleague was making against the organized opposition of 
a great city and the indifference of the central government. 
He knew well that Neesima was the pivot upon which the 
whole enterprise hung, and though sometimes differing with 
him as to the wisest means of procedure, when the die was 
cast, he supported him with a friendship and steadfastness 
that greatly strengthened Mr. Neesima's hands. He wrote 
on Nov. 24th: — "Mr. Neesima is chagrined at the 
turn affairs have taken and fears, I think, that the mission 
will blame him, though I see no room for it. He does not 
make nor rule the governors of this land." In response 
to a letter from Boston which questioned the wisdom of 
planning for a college, he wrote in the summer of 1875: 
" The idea of a Christian college is a part of Mr. Neesima's 
life. He is praying and planning about it all the time. 
Yet he does not want to be connected with that college. 
He does not even want to teach in the Training School, if 
he can be relieved. He wishes to give all his time to 
preaching the Gospel. . . . The work we have been able 
to do in the city is indescribably precious. The ferment 
caused by the priests called the attention of everybody to 
us, and they have been coming from all parts of the city 
to inquire and hear on week days and on the Sabbath. 
We have given away nearly two thousand tracts, contain- 



152 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

ing the marrow of the Gospel, to those who have come to 
our houses. Over seventy were present here last Sabbath 
morning and over fifty at Mr. Neesima's in the afternoon. 
The girls in the government school, from which Mrs. Nee- 
sima was discharged, have started a daily prayer-meeting 
in the school." 

Notwithstanding the reactionary spirit in Kyoto, the 
liberal attitude of the government in the country at large 
was already bearing fruit, and each day brought news of 
growing religious toleration. In one morning word of the 
prayer-meeting in the Government School, just cited, had 
been barely received, when two influential men from the 
northwest of the city came in, saying that they believed 
Christianity to be the true way, and that they and their 
families wanted to follow it. The postman next handed 
in a letter from Osaka, saying that the town of Sakai, 
where there had been bitter prejudice, was now having the 
Gospel regularly preached. A letter from Kobe related how 
the governor, who had formerly told the missionaries that 
he would have to imprison anyone selling a Bible, was now 
employing a Christian to preach the Gospel to the prison- 
ers in the city gaol on the Sabbath, and to teach them dur- 
ing the week. Before these letters were fully read, Mr. 
Neesima called with an official notice from the Imperial 
Department of Education, stating that it had received the 
applications for the residence of Prof. Learned and Dr. 
Taylor, which had been approved and forwarded by the 
Governor of Kyoto. He also reported that the official in 
charge of the Exhibition, soon to open in Kyoto, had 
granted permission for Bibles to be placed on exhibition. 
Of that morning's experiences Mr. Davis placed in his 
diary: — "After hearing all this we joined in a praise 
service. Life here is indescribably exciting and indescrib- 
ably precious. Were Japan and God's Truth going back- 
ward in the world we might get discouraged, but both are 



THE FOUNDING OF THE DOSHISHA 153 

going forward. No human power can stop them. Our 
happiness and joy in the work are unbounded." 

In spite of these causes of rejoicing the long delay and 
official red tape involved in the securing of permits for the 
two new missionaries' residence in Kyoto were of a kind 
to try the patience of more patient men than the two who 
were holding on for reinforcements in Kyoto. Until the 
coming of these added teachers and this proof of the willing- 
ness of the government to put the Christian school on 
a permanent basis, the future was insecure. The negotia- 
tions dragged through five weary months. The Kyoto 
governor seemed to be fighting against time before yielding 
this last point. " Dec. 15th, 1875. Mr. Neesima had 
a long consultation with the vice-governor last night. He 
says that the Shinto officials are banded with the Buddhist 
priests to resist us in every possible way: that the Kyoto 
Fu is not afraid of the priests, but of a band of Satsuma 
men, now attached to the Kyoto Fu, who are trying to 
make trouble. Hence they think it unwise to make any 
more applications now. I advised Mr. Neesima not to urge 
the matter at all, but to let things rest for the present." 

A little later, Mr. Davis wrote to Boston: — " Applica- 
tions to the Yedo government for Dr. Taylor and Prof. 
Learned were made out, and the governor promised to 
send them to Tokyo. Waiting for several weeks without a 
reply, Mr. Neesima went to the castle and inquired whether 
the paper had gone to Yedo. He was told that the clerk 
had gone to Tamba with the governor, and would not be 
back for a week and that the governor, after keeping the 
papers several days, signed them and gave them to the 
absent clerk to forward to Tokyo, but that this clerk had 
lost the papers, and could not find them. There was noth- 
ing to to do but await the governor's return. Upon his 
return, Governor Makimura requested Mr. Neesima to 
prepare new copies of the application. He next had a 



154 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

friendly consultation with Mr. Yamamoto, professing to be 
very anxious to have Christianity taught in Kyoto and to 
have two more foreign teachers in the school, and promised 
to send the applications to Yedo the next day. A full 
month elapsed and no word came from Yedo. Mr. Yama- 
moto enquired of the Governor's secretary and was told that 
the petitions had been sent a month before and that they 
were looking for the answers every day. Three weeks more 
elapsed and I heard through a Japanese friend in Yedo, 
who had enquired, that the petitions had never been re- 
ceived in Tokyo. Mr. Neesima then saw the governor 
again and was told that he never promised Mr. Yamamoto 
that he would send them, and that he was awaiting a fa- 
vourable time to do so, and that the city would soon be 
open to foreigners for one hundred and fourteen days, dur- 
ing the Exhibition. He advised Mr. Neesima to employ 
Dr. Taylor and Prof. Learned in the school during this 
period, saying that perhaps before that expired, a favour- 
able time to send off the petitions would come. This is 
the best we can do, and we must wait, trusting alone in 
God." 

The unwavering support of the blind counsellor, Mr. 
Yamamoto, through all the vicissitudes of these months 
was a source of great encouragement and strength. Here 
was a man who stood like a rock in the midst of the eddies 
of changing political and official opinion, and openly and 
enthusiastically espoused the Christian movement. When 
this staunch friend heard of the establishment of the Girls' 
Normal School in Yedo with the Christian, Mr. Nakamura, 
at its head, he remarked: — "If this appointment was 
made by the Yedo government, there is no use in the 
Kyoto Fu trying to keep Christianity out of Kyoto any 
longer. In the meantime the school is flourishing and, 
better still, the people are anxious to hear the Truth. 
Nearly fifty came in a pouring rain to my house last Sab- 



THE FOUNDING OF THE DOSHISHA 155 

bath morning; the Bible and tracts are being sold; we 
have given away 2,000 tracts, containing the marrow 
of the Gospel." Dec. 14th: — "The Chiu-kyo-in, or 
Government Religious School, has been holding several 
exciting meetings to see if Doshisha cannot be stopped. 
The priests are doing a good deal to stir up the people. 
Tokuzo, our cook, waiting at an Amah's 1 to be rubbed 
the other day, overheard some men talking about the 
1 priests of the Yasokyo ' (Jesus faith), who had come to 
Kyoto and were doing all manner of magical things, making 
horses talk, etc. Further, because the government had 
allowed this wicked thing to come to Kyoto, that one of 
the gods would cover up the sun for eight days, so that 
everything in Japan would die." 

Early in December, Mr. Davis placed the first Bibles 
and Christian literature on sale in the city. Up to this 
time a few stores had kept Bibles secretly, only bringing 
them out when called for by purchasers. He now arranged 
with the principal bookstore of the city to handle a line of 
Bibles and tracts, and to supply from this center a num- 
ber of the smaller shops of the city. 

From the first winter in Kyoto, with twenty hours a 
week of teaching in the school, personal evangelism occu- 
pied a large place in his time and thought: — " Besides 
occasional lectures, I am engaged four hours each day in 
teaching in the school except Saturday, which I try to 
keep sacred to rest. Half of this is Bible teaching, the 
rest scientific. I try to spend an hour or two in my study 
every day, reviewing translations of books for the Training 
School, or for publication, writing for our Japanese paper, 
or in the study of the language; but this good intention 
is continually interrupted by people who come to inquire 
after the Truth, and whom I cannot find it in my heart 
to refuse to see. In the evening, after supper, while bowing 

1 Professional masseur. 



156 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

around our family altar, I try to throw off the care and 
the thought of the great work, which I can hardly touch, 
upon Him, who careth for us. I spend twenty minutes or 
half an hour looking at the news of the month or in lighter 
reading or conversation, and then, generally before fashion- 
able people are through their dinner, I begin to try to get 
the nine hours' sleep without which I cannot stand the 
strain." 

Through the winter of 1875 and 1876, the prejudice 
against the Christian movement in Kyoto continued strong 
and was expressed in many ways. Although the governor 
had finally sent the applications for the two new mission- 
aries' residence on to Yedo, he had been led to believe that 
Mr. Neesima had no other purpose in starting the Doshisha 
than to introduce foreign missionaries into the city to 
spread Christianity, and that the Doshisha was not to be 
a school at all, but merely a preaching place. 

At the suburb of Fushimi, a prominent doctor had 
kindly received the Gospel, inviting the neighbors to gather 
to hear Mr. Neesima and Mr. Davis preach each Sabbath 
in his home. Finally, the city officials became very sus- 
picious, and in December ordered the physician to appear 
before the Kyoto Fu and to present in writing a minute 
account of all that he had done and that had transpired in 
his house. He was told that he must not allow such 
gatherings at his home. All who had listened or had 
received tracts were also summoned to appear at the office 
and were closely questioned and frightened. On the last 
of three successive official examinations, the following con- 
versation occurred, showing the methods of intimidation 
used. " This Davis came up here to teach an English 
school, did he not? Yes. Then he is like a man who has a 
license to sell deer meat, but who sells dog meat. Well, is 
it dog meat? I used to think so, but on tasting it, I find 
it is a great deal better than deer meat; but I would like 



THE FOUNDING OF THE DOSHISHA 157 

to ask you one question : — this way is taught publicly in 
Kobe and Osaka and in Tokyo. How is it that here in 
the Kyoto Fu a man is not allowed to hear it in his own 
house ? Are we not all under the same government ? " " Well , ' ' 
replied the official, "I do not say that way is 
either good or bad, and I do not say that your friends 
cannot hear it in your own house, but you let in the 
common people, who cannot understand it; we cannot 
allow this. We have good and sufficient religions in Japan, 
we do not want any more. We have Confucianism for 
scholars like you and Buddhism for the masses." The doc- 
tor replied: — "If Confucianism and Buddhism are all- 
sufficient religions, taught hundreds of years before Christ, 
by their founders through long lives, why is it that they 
have not spread beyond India and China and Japan? And 
if Christianity is a bad way, how is it, since its founder 
only taught three years, that it has spread all over the 
world?" "Well, we do not say that it is either bad or 
good, but you must not allow the people to meet at your 
house, and you are discharged," replied the official. The 
physician went directly to Mr. Davis from the city office 
and reported this conversation in detail. He borrowed a 
quantity of books and tracts, and lent them to his neigh- 
bors, but so prejudiced were the people against him that 
his practice gradually fell off so that he came near starva- 
tion, and, finally, lost all interest in Christianity. 

The new year opened with two memorable events in 
the little Christian community of Kyoto. The first Chris- 
tian communion ever held in the old capital took place in 
the missionary's home. The little band of seven or eight 
Christians were drawn very close together, and they publicly 
confessed their faith by the symbols of mystical union with 
their Saviour. Oyaye Yamamoto, the sister of the blind 
counsellor, and Merle, the two months old son, were bap- 
tized. Mr. Neesima officiated at the communion table. 



158 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

On the afternoon of January third, Miss Yamamoto and 
Mr. Neesima were married in the presence of the students of 
the school, the brother and daughter of the local Daimyo 
and several friends of the Yamamoto family. Commenting 
upon this affair in a letter to the mission, Mr. Davis said: — 
" Mr. Neesima would, I think, have preferred to have had 
yesterday's doings more secret, but I overruled him. What 
will be the result of this and the Fushimi affair and of all 
our affairs, only God knows. It may prove that you have 
sent the wrong man up here, but if I cannot do what I do 
above board, and teach all that come to my house for the 
Truth and those who ask me to come to their homes to 
teach them, then I had rather leave Kyoto and Japan too, 
if necessary. Mr. Neesima fears that the governor will 
keep the applications for the two families when they are 
returned from Yedo and thus delay us, and I am waiting 
before putting Dr. Taylor's house under repair." 

Toward the end of the winter the long-looked-for per- 
mits for the residence of the new families were received and 
the way now seemed open to put the Doshisha upon a 
more permanent basis. 



Chapter XII 
MOVING MOUNTAINS INTO THE SEA 

THE story of the Doshisha is not merely a record of 
human achievement. There are few portions of 
Christian history in which the hand of God is seen 
working more strikingly to accomplish his gracious pur- 
poses for a nation. 

We have described two lines of influence that, widely 
separated, had, under divine guidance, converged to create 
the infant Doshisha. We have seen the school opened 
under great opposition and in the face of mighty obstacles. 
We must now turn back and trace a third factor that was 
to enter the Doshisha to give it a stability and a quality 
in its earliest days which has exerted an extraordinary 
influence upon its whole career. Of scarcely less influence 
was this new factor in the life of Mr. Davis. 

One morning, in February, 1876, in the darkest days of 
the first winter, when the opposition was so great that it 
seemed as though the whole enterprise must fail, a letter 
came to Mr. Davis from Captain L. L. Janes, a teacher in 
a government institution in the southern city of Kumamoto. 
He asked if a number of the graduates of his school could 
be received by the Doshisha to be prepared for the Chris- 
tian ministry. Mr. Davis had never heard of the man or of 
the school and could scarcely believe that such a work had 
been accomplished without the knowledge of his mission. 

In the spring of 1871, the feudal lord of Kumamoto, 
like many other princes in Japan, had established a school 
for the instruction of the youth of his province, in western 
science. He desired, particularly, that the foreign teacher 
should be a man of military spirit, so that the war-like 

159 



160 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

traditions of his clan might be maintained. He must have 
a foreign soldier for his school. Through the assistance of 
Dr. G. F. Verbeck, the pioneer missionary of the Dutch 
Reformed Church, Captain Janes, a retired officer of the 
United States Army, was secured for the Kumamoto 
school. 

Kumamoto was among the most conservative sections 
of Japan, where the hatred of Christianity was intense, and 
where foreigners and foreign innovations were equally dis- 
liked by the masses. Captain Janes and his family were 
often in peril, but worked on quietly, gaining the friendship 
and confidence of the citizens. For three years the foreign 
teacher said nothing of Christianity to his students, but at 
the end of that time he announced that he would begin a 
Bible lecture, and that anyone who wished to attend would 
be made welcome. 

As one of these students later wrote, " We still hated 
Christianity as if it were a snake, and did not even like to 
see a Bible, but we respected him so, that we all con- 
cluded to go to the lecture. ... Of the few who attended, 
some went out of curiosity, others for amusement, others 
simply that they might oppose; none with the desire to 
accept Christianity. At this time, he simply taught the 
Bible and never exhorted us to become Christians, and 
when two of us thought to impose on him by pretending 
that we wished to become preachers, he met us sternly, 
saying, • You are not yet worthy to become preachers, go 
on with your Bible study.' After a year of this work, a 
few of the students were really touched by the Gospel and 
the school was divided into two factions, one favorable to 
Christianity, the other seeking to oppose it by the learning 
of the Chinese sages. For about six months, we were thus 
divided in our admiration for Christianity and for Confu- 
cianism, studying Christianity with Captain Janes in the 
morning and Confucianism with the Chinese teacher in the 



MOVING MOUNTAINS INTO THE SEA 161 

afternoon, but by the end of the year, all except one or 
two of our class were united in their belief in Christianity. 

11 By Captain Janes' advice, some of us spent the New 
Year's vacation in the study of John's Gospel and in 
prayer to God for his blessing upon ourselves and our class- 
mates. When the new term opened, these Christian stu- 
dents had a faith that burned like fire, so that they could 
not but preach to their fellow-students and try to lead 
them to the gate of salvation. The whole school was like a 
boiling caldron; the studies were neglected and groups of 
five or six men began to study the Bible in the recitation 
rooms, the dining-room or in their bed-rooms. The stu- 
dents had but little knowledge of the Bible or Theology; 
they knew less about revivals or the work of the Holy 
Spirit, but they were impelled to preach; even though some 
of them were but twelve years old. We wondered why our 
spirits burned like a fire and why we preached the Gospel 
like mad men." 

The result of this visitation of the power of God in the 
school was the conversion of forty students, while fifty 
others began to study the Bible. On the last Sabbath of 
January, 1876, the forty Christian students went out to a 
hill called " Hana oka yama," 1 near Kumamoto. Singing 
hymns as they climbed, they seated themselves upon the 
summit and there made a solemn covenant together, that, 
as they had thus been blessed of God in advance of their 
countrymen, they would pledge themselves for the enlight- 
enment of the empire by preaching the Gospel, even at 
the sacrifice of their lives. They sealed their lofty purpose 
by kneeling in prayer and signing their names to the cove- 
nant paper. Thus was born the Kumamoto Band, which 
became one of the great forces in building Christianity in 
Japan. 

On hearing of the Christian covenant, fierce persecution 

* Flowery Hill, 



162 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

flamed out in the school and in the city. The boys were 
beaten, imprisoned by their families and threatened with 
their lives. The school was closed and some of the students 
recanted their faith, but thirty stood firm under the great- 
est trials, although the oldest was less than twenty years 
of age, and not only gained the victory, but became the 
stronger through their persecutions. 

It was in February, 1876, in the midst of this testing 
of his students, that Captain Janes wrote to Mr. Davis, 
asking if the Doshisha could receive this band of storm- 
tried young Christians who had pledged themselves to 
evangelize Japan. He was opposed to sectarianism and 
looked to the Doshisha to train his students, since it seemed 
to him to stand for Christian unity and liberal policies. 
11 My work has been accompanied from the time it was 
possible to speak of Christianity," wrote Captain Janes, 
" by constant religious instruction of my pupils; in fact, the 
whole work has been inspired from the first with the aim, 
on my part, of making it subserve the upbuilding of the 
Kingdom of Christ." On March fourth, he wrote: " My 
boys and I have been passing through unusual events, and 
the mutterings of a sharp, vindictive persecution are still 
in the air. I think the little colony is practically intact; 
no lives have been taken, though that was threatened 
seriously, and there are no cases of ' hara kiri ' * yet, though 
two parents threatened to take that method of driving 
their sons from the faith; their degradation was declared 
to be insupportable. I grieve over my imprisoned boys. 
The strength of one is failing and the persecutors may kill 
him." 

To Mr. Davis he wrote, introducing the first of the 
Kumamoto graduates to arrive in Kyoto, " He was one of 
the first to see the light, to be convinced of the saving 
power of Christianity, and to give his heart unalterably to 

1 Suicide by disembowelling with the short sword. 



MOVING MOUNTAINS INTO THE SEA 163 

Jesus, and as a consequence he was subjected to the most 
outrageous treatment at the hands of his brother, and has 
been imprisoned for 120 days. He was made a slave of the 
servants of the family, who were instructed to treat him 
as devil-possessed, without human rights. He is now 
practically an outcast; he is as a shorn lamb; he is leaving 
all." 

In October, 1876, Captain Janes was notified that his 
services were no longer desired in Kumamoto, since it was 
not the purpose of the authorities to keep a school for 
making preachers, and it became an open question what 
course he should follow. Mr. Davis was deeply impressed 
with the work and spirit of Captain Janes and believed 
that his fearlessness, his burning zeal, his high scholarship 
and his skill in the training of Japanese young men singled 
him out as the man to head the new collegiate department 
of the Doshisha. After a visit of Captain Janes to Kyoto 
in the summer, he wrote earnestly to Boston and to his 
colleagues, urging that a man with such a record should 
not be allowed to slip through their fingers. 

Although a large majority in the mission favored his 
appointment and even voted to advance his travel expenses 
to and from America, there were those who conscientiously 
objected to such use of mission funds, and this, together 
with complications that arose in the United States, led 
Captain Janes to decline to consider the whole matter. 1 
This was a severe trial to Mr. Davis. The disappointment 
in losing such a leader for the college was keen, and equally 
hard to bear was, as he supposed, the reflection in Captain 
Janes' withdrawal of a sentiment within the mission of op- 
position to a collegiate department and to the school in 
Kyoto. There is ample evidence that the accuracy of this 

1 One of the unpublished tragedies of the Christian Movement in Japan is wrapped 
up in the history of this remarkable man. 

His return to Japan, in 1893, as an enemy of revealed religion, and his persistent 
efforts to undermine the faith of the very men whom he had led into the light are 
well known, and cannot be overlooked in an impartial survey of his career. 



164 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

interpretation of mission action was not substantiated by 
the facts, and the incident illustrates a tendency in his 
sensitive nature which made it difficult for him to under- 
stand the motives of those whom a more judicial tempera- 
ment impelled to question his policies. 

The leaders of the Board in Boston now generally ap- 
proved the college plan, but were anxious lest the high 
Christian purpose of the school should be weakened through 
its development into a full collegiate institute. To Dr. 
Clark, who not only expressed doubt regarding the entrance 
of non-Christian young men into the Doshisha, but urged 
that only candidates for the ministry be received, he replied 
in no uncertain tones, " We are going to start a school 
with a course of study arranged for the training of men for 
the ministry. We plan to aid these young men, as far as 
we wisely can, by giving them work to do. In a great life 
center like Kyoto, where the Truth enters in the name of 
this school for the first time, shall we limit the Doshisha to 
the half dozen Christian young men who will come in? 
Especially when the governor of the city is willing that the 
Truth be taught to everybody, and when young men are 
coming to us every month from a distance, where as yet 
no missionary has ever been, asking to be taught so that 
they may return and teach their townsmen? The stones, 
the rocks and all the inanimate things in Japan would cry 
out ' No ' to such an idea. 

" We plan to receive all young men of good character who 
will come and pursue our course of study and pay for their 
board, up to the limit of our building, and we will take all 
others who are willing to rent rooms elsewhere and come in 
as day pupils." 

To a member of the Prudential Committee who sug- 
gested that the candidates for the ministry be sent to the 
government colleges for their scientific training, he wrote: 
" To send our young men to government schools, nine- tenths 



MOVING MOUNTAINS INTO THE SEA 165 

of whose graduates become officials and most of them 
infidels, will not secure this end. Students who pursue 
the full course of the present Doshisha will not have as 
much of science as the government requires of teachers of 
common schools. It is all well to give Bible training, only, 
to certain men whose hearts are on fire with the love of 
Christ, and send them out to work, but zeal, alone, cannot 
convert Japan. Is it too much to give the pastors who are 
to grapple with the progressive spirit of this empire during 
the next fifty years as much knowledge of science as is 
required of common school teachers? We cannot do this 
without following our present course. 

" We propose nothing more in a college, at first, than 
the division of the courses, — the scientific department 
placed under a man like Captain Janes. This will not only 
release some of us who have been teaching these secular 
subjects, and thus add largely to our effective force, but 
it will form a beginning of what will be for all coming 
time, — a Christian college. At the same time we must 
have a school whose every teacher will feel that the one 
thing, the great thing, without which all others are nothing, 
is the leading of the pupil to Christ; a school where each 
teacher will labor and pray for this each day and hour; 
where they will, as Captain Janes does, teach Christianity 
with the problems of Euclid. It is only from such a school 
that we shall secure Christian young men for the work of 
the ministry in Japan." 

The winter and spring of 1876 had seen a steady gain in 
the hold of Christianity upon the city of Kyoto. June 30th 
he wrote, " We have now six preaching places and five 
Sunday schools in different centers of the city and over 
five hundred people hear the Gospel every Sabbath. We 
fixed 180 seats in our house for last Sabbath's services 
and most of them were filled. We have an inquiry meeting 
at our house every Monday evening. This week ten were 



166 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

present and all prayed. We expect to organize a Church 
in the early fall." At the annual mission meeting held in 
Osaka, May 30th, it was decided to put up a dormitory 
and a recitation building upon the land owned by the 
Doshisha. These were erected during the summer and 
were ready for use by the opening of the fall term. The 
mission was, as a whole, in hearty sympathy with the new 
school, but the obvious difficulties in the way of operating 
the institution in a city where foreigners had no property 
or residence rights appeared to some a reason for question- 
ing the maintenance of the Doshisha in Kyoto. Moreover, 
the exclusion of the Bible from the buildings owned by the 
school, even though Bible classes could be held in the 
adjoining building, rented in Mr. Neesima's name, and in 
the homes of the missionaries, seemed to others a 
concession to government authority which nullified the 
Christian purpose and influence of the Doshisha. Anx- 
ieties and criticisms were freely expressed in more than 
twenty letters addressed to Mr. Davis during the sum- 
mer. 

This opposition, though in most cases less intense than 
he supposed and expressed more in the form of negative 
doubts than as positive convictions, aroused him to an 
unprecedented degree. If he accepted more than his share 
of the responsibility for meeting such criticism, and felt 
unduly that he stood alone in his defence of the Doshisha 
and of the Kyoto position, we can hardly wonder, as we 
consider the extent to which he stood pledged to it and its 
policies. He had just passed through the birth travails of 
an infant school; he had for ten months been braced to 
meet the attacks of enemies who threatened its existence; 
he had staked all upon holding the position to which his 
mission had assigned him. The fact that he had taken no 
step beyond that authorized by his mission, and the con- 
sciousness that he saw eye to eye with his colleagues, 



MOVING MOUNTAINS INTO THE SEA 167 

Messrs. Learned and Neesima, were sources of strength 
and he went resolutely ahead. 

There had, however, been so many doubts expressed, some 
of which were based upon misconceptions of the facts, that 
he addressed a general letter to the mission. " Kyoto, 
Sept. 15th, 1876. We are to dedicate our new Train- 
ing School buildings next Monday morning, the 18th, at ten 
o'clock. We should be glad if those who hear of it in 
time, and who have faith enough left in the project, would 
pray with us and for us and for the Doshisha at that 
time. . . . The mission owns these buildings in the name 
of Japanese. In one is a dormitory; in another the prin- 
cipal theological branches are to be taught and morning 
prayers held; in the third we will teach exegesis of the 
Old and New Testaments, with the consent of the pro- 
prietors of the school and the authorities, for I found all 
the Japanese lions were chained when I came down from 
Hieizan * yesterday. Does the fact that two of these build- 
ings are owned in the name of five Japanese 2 (the Dosh- 
isha Trustees), and that one is owned in the name of one 
Japanese (Mr. Neesima), alter the fact that the Training 
School is held in them? Is not the school a unit just as 
truly as if the buildings were all held in the name of 
five Japanese, or all in the name of one Japanese? 2 Are 
the buildings the school at all? Socrates did not think so; 
our Saviour did not think so when he trained his dis- 
ciples; the founders of Yale College and of many other 
colleges and seminaries at home did not think so. 

11 And yet we are told that we have no Training School; 
that, as a mission, we could be brought to task for obtain- 
ing money and using it under false pretenses; then the 
movement in Kyoto is likened to the Charge of the Light 

1 " Hieizan," a famous mountain east of Kyoto, formerly the stronghold of thou- 
sands of militant Buddhist priests. 

2 At this time, no property outside of the limited concessions of the treaty ports 
could be owned by a foreigner. It had to be registered in the name of a Japanese 
and legally became the property of the party in whose name it was registered. 



168 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

Brigade, when ' Somebody blundered.' There is, I confess, 
some aptness in this illustration; but we are worse off 
than the ' Six Hundred ' were. They had not cannon be- 
hind them until they turned to retreat, but we have. . . . 
If the Light Brigade had taken the ramparts on three 
sides of them, and spiked the cannon, it would not have 
been said that ' Somebody blundered.' This is what we 
are doing and expect to do. To the soldier, a fire in the 
rear is most demoralizing, but when it comes from the 
mission that ordered us forward, you should not be sur- 
prised that it affects us." 

He then reviewed the mission decisions which had 
founded and sustained the Doshisha in Kyoto and had 
assigned him to that work. He pointed out that, in March 
it had approved the retention of the school in Kyoto and 
the placing of two more families there, even though the 
Bible was temporarily excluded from the curriculum; 
further, that the mission had unanimously voted to put 
up the new buildings upon this basis. 

The letters were sent out, there was a general with- 
drawal of objections and the dedication took place, as Mr. 
Davis had planned, Monday, the 18th of September. He 
wrote of this occasion: " It was the day of my life. The 
Grand Review at Washington was tame compared to this. 
The tempest in the teapot rapidly subsided, and now our 
school is moving quietly along. Our bell is an old Bud- 
dhist temple bell * and as it rings out its minor strains in 
front of the great temples near by, it must awaken peculiar 
sensations in some hearts." 

The young men from Kumamoto, who now formed nearly 
half the school, were disappointed with what they found. 
The Doshisha was poorly equipped and differently organ- 
ized from the Kumamoto school. Some of them talked of 

1 After a short time the police objected to the ringing of this bell, because of the 
resemblance of its tones to a fire alarm, and the school classes were called together by 
the wooden clappers, used by night watchmen on their rounds. 



MOVING MOUNTAINS INTO THE SEA 169 

going away. Captain Janes, now teaching in Osaka, 
visited Kyoto in December and met his old students in 
Mr. Davis' home. He advised them to be patient and, 
if the Doshisha was not satisfactory, to remain in it and 
make it what they wished it to become. He told them 
that the men and women of the American Board Mission 
were among the best in the United States, and that they 
had the prayers of earnest Christians in America behind 
them. They all remained. 

The fifteen men of the graduating class were without 
funds and were given teaching in the lower classes, which 
they carried along with their theological work. " These 
fifteen students were the culled men in a class of seventy 
who had entered Captain Janes' school five years before. 
All the others had fallen out, and these men, alone, had 
persisted through to graduation. It was no easy task to 
teach them, especially Theology. Mr. Neesima assisted in 
the teaching. Mr. Learned, also, was from the first an 
efficient teacher, while Mr. Doane, 1 and Dr. Taylor taught 
part time. I had most of the theological teaching to do. 
I made it a rule to speak English out of the classroom and 
Japanese in the classroom. This was a disappointment 
to the Kumamoto men, who had always been taught in 
English by Captain Janes. I felt, however, that they 
needed to learn these great truths, which they were to 
preach to the masses, in their own language, and so per- 
sisted in using it. They cared nothing for the consensus 
of opinion of the Christian Church; they looked at Chris- 
tian Truth for the first time and from an Asiatic stand- 
point. I gave them a synopsis of my lectures in Theology 
in English, and then went into it more in detail in the 
vernacular. I gave them about half the time to ask ques- 
tions and to discuss among themselves. . . . They asked 

1 Rev. E. T. Doane, a missionary of the American Board in Ponape, Micronesia, 
spent two years in Japan for the purpose of regaining his health. 



170 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

me questions, every day, which I had never thought of 
before, and the three years in which I had them as pupils 
were years of the most intense study for me. . . . They had 
been prejudiced against the study of Theology by their old 
teacher and there was a great deal that they would not 
accept. I tried to be patient with them, but looking back 
upon those years, it seems a miracle that we were able to 
hold them all until graduation." 

Mr. Davis was early impressed with the wonderful op- 
portunity presented by women's education in Japan. He 
had earnestly urged the American Board to open the Kobe 
Girls' School, which later became Kobe College, and on 
going to Kyoto it was his desire to see a fully equipped 
women's department in the Doshisha. In July, 1875, while 
waiting for an official permit to enter Kyoto, he wrote to 
Boston: — "The work for women in Japan must be done 
by women. Miss Dudley's work in Sanda and the villages 
around shows what women can do in preaching the Gospel. 
Mr. Yamamoto told me the other day, in Kyoto, that they 
would be glad to have a Christian Girls' School opened 
there at once. No woman's ambition could rise higher 
than some of these openings which are waiting here." 
He felt the need of Christian homes for the pastors and 
leaders in the Christian communities. " There is a harvest 
going to waste among the women of this city. The Gospel 
is being preached in over fifty different places by men, but 
it is a terribly one-sided affair. These very young men 
have just come out of heathenism, in which most of their 
mothers and sisters remain. Preachers are just beginning 
to see that the Gospel is for all, male and female, but 
they do not know how to reach the women of this city, 
and did they know how, the usages of society are such that 
they could not do it. Schools for girls as well as for men 
are a ' sine qua non ' ; without them we cannot train the 
men and women who are to evangelize the nation. There 



MOVING MOUNTAINS INTO THE SEA 171 

should be vigorous boarding schools for girls in Kobe, 
Osaka and Kyoto; but the location of our Training School 
in Kyoto . . . makes the establishment of such a school 
here of the first importance." 

The Doshisha Girls' School was opened early in February, 
1877, in Mr. Davis' home, by Miss Starkweather and Mrs. 
Neesima. The hundred rooms of the dilapidated palace 
occupied by the missionary family were well adapted for a 
school. The daughter of a nobleman, a brother of the 
Sanda Daimio, who had been a regular attendant at the 
Sabbath services, became the first student of the school. 
With the growth of the Christian community in Kyoto, 
the number of pupils gradually increased, until twenty 
were living in the old " yashiki," under the care of Miss 
Starkweather, who mothered the girls in her own rooms, 
sleeping and eating with them. Many applications for 
admission arising from extreme destitution among the 
Christians could not be refused. Secretary Clark was in- 
clined to consider the care of so many poor girls a perilous 
venture. Mr. Davis, however, warmly supported Miss 
Starkweather's course. "If we wait for the sons and 
daughters of the rich to be sent to our schools to be con- 
verted, and in turn go out to convert this nation, we shall 
wait till the opportunity is past. We have now in our 
home a Girls' School, of five day pupils and as many 
boarders. Last summer two poor men who had become 
interested in the Truth died asking that their children 
might be brought up as Christians. In each family was a 
daughter. The mothers were very poor and asked us to 
take these children and educate them, the mothers furnish- 
ing clothes and we furnishing food and teaching. Just 
then, one of the Kumamoto students, a boy fourteen years 
old, came, saying that his father, a drunkard, had run away 
with all the family effects and that his mother and seven 
sisters under eighteen years of age were cast off and in a 



172 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

starving condition. He was earning five yen a month for 
their support and his classmates were contributing from 
their poverty two yen more. Here was God's call to go 
forward. Our hands went into our pockets and two of the 
sisters were helped to enter the school. This full explana- 
tion to the Board elicited, unsought, a fund for use in 
both schools for indigent worthy students. 

A wearisome search for a building site for the Girls' 
School was met for two years with constant opposition and 
suspicion from officials and land owners, but a tract of five 
acres was finally bought, not far from the Doshisha. The 
land had to be purchased in the name of a lumber mer- 
chant who lived upon it, and it was owned in his name 
until after the school buildings were erected. 

Toward the end of 1876 the first churches were organized 
in Kyoto. The fifty-nine Christians were divided into 
three groups, centering in different parts of the city, the 
idea being in this way to magnify the responsibility of 
each member and to diffuse the influence of the Christian 
movement. The First Church of Christ of Kyoto was 
formed with fifteen members, on November 26th, in Mr. 
Learned 's home, facing the imperial park. Mr. Davis 
chose as the theme of his sermon on this occasion the 
prophetic vision of the swelling tide of the river of Ezekiel 
(Ezekiel 47), a text which he used thirty-one years later, 
at Arima, for his last Mission Meeting sermon. 

December first, 1876, he wrote of the wonderful progress 
of the year: — "It is now a year since we opened our 
Training School with eight scholars and a regular Sabbath 
preaching service with six hearers. We have now, beside 
Mr. Neesima, four mission families with permission to 
remain more than one year. We have had the privilege 
of telling the Story of the Cross to more than a thousand 
people, who have come by ones and twos to our homes, 
and of preaching to crowds on the Sabbath. We have 



MOVING MOUNTAINS INTO THE SEA 173 

erected buildings for the Training School and have them 
filled with seventy young men, more than half of whom are 
earnest Christians, preparing for Christian work. They are 
preaching in forty different places in this great city and in 
two out-stations, seven miles away. On the twenty-sixth 
of November we organized the First Church of Kyoto, with 
fifteen students entering into covenant. Yesterday, another 
church was organized, with nine students and twelve city 
people uniting on profession, while next Sabbath, in still 
another center, a third church will start with an initial 
membership of twenty. On the twentieth we are to have 
a praise service, inviting all the Christians in this part of 
Japan to meet with us. Forty-five of our sixty-five stu- 
dents are earnest Christians, thirteen heard the Truth here 
for the first time and nineteen were converted in Captain 
Janes' school. We have also the beginnings of a girls' 
school. Surely the Lord hath done great things whereof we 
are glad. I am holding an inquiry meeting, every Monday 
night, in the home of the ex-Daimio of Tamba, who lives 
in this city. He prayed in public for the first time last 
evening. We hope to organize a church there soon, and 
another at a center where Dr. and Mrs. Taylor are work- 
ing." 

With all the uncertainties of the position in Kyoto, and 
the chances of a reaction which might at any moment 
wreck the school and drive it out of the city, he continued 
to have confidence in the intentions and ability of the 
imperial government to hold to the program of progress 
which it had begun. In replying to fears expressed by Dr. 
Clark lest Japan was undergoing a reaction against civil- 
ization, he wrote in November, 1876: — "I am surprised 
that you consider the political situation unsettled in Japan 
and in Kyoto. This government had been steadily grow- 
ing stronger for eight years. It has introduced the post- 
office, telegraph, railroad, and lines of steamers to bind the 



174 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

country together, and has suppressed every attempt at in- 
surrection. It has conquered China in a bloodless war and 
has opened Korea. It has just issued an order for the cap- 
italization of the incomes of the Samurai class, giving bonds 
for a few years' income at once, thus greatly relieving the 
country. The fact that the government dared to issue this 
order is one proof of its strength. It is like granite to 
sand, compared with Turkey, and if Tilden is elected Presi- 
dent of the United States, we will consider the Japanese 
government more likely to be stable than the American. 
The reaction, of which you speak, is not apparent here. 
The opposition met in Kyoto was natural. The fact that 
we have secured permission to open the school and for three 
families to reside here, although the government has known 
of the opposition and has feared an insurrection, so that 
prominent men have been arrested on suspicion in the city, 
all winter, shows that it has a strong hand. Japan begins, 
by government order, on April first, 1876, to keep the 
Christian Sabbath. I have said, again and again, the nation 
cannot go back; it is going ahead in real progress, faster 
and faster every year." 

Notwithstanding this optimistic view, during those first 
years in Kyoto, the opposition of the city government to 
the Doshisha was expressed in every possible way. Pass- 
ports for new teachers were repeatedly refused or delayed 
upon some trifling pretext. If a foreign teacher unwittingly 
broke a rule or petty law, Mr. Neesima was called to the 
castle, 1 to be scolded or fined. Building permits, property 
contracts, and residence extensions were denied or so long 
delayed as to seriously cripple the work. Finally, land 
for the Girls' School, toward which three thousand dollars 
had been given, could not be found, so great was the prej- 
udice against selling to anyone connected with Christianity. 

In the midst of these critical days, the order came from 

1 The seat of the city government. 



MOVING MOUNTAINS INTO THE SEA 175 

the Kyoto castle that all houses surrounding the Imperial 
Palace should be torn down to make room for a public 
park. The old " yashiki," housing the missionary's family 
and the Girls' School, must come down with the rest. No 
house in the city could be rented; money would scarcely 
be voted by the mission " ad interim " for a permanent 
house to be built in Kyoto. " Wife and I prayed over the 
matter all summer and, finally, in September, our minds 
were made up to build. We did not know where we could 
get land nor where the money was coming from, but we 
determined to go as far as we could and to trust the Lord 
for the rest. I had seventy-six dollars in the United States, 
and I ordered that sent on. We lived as economically as 
possible, buying but little, sending to San Francisco for no 
supplies that fall, thus saving all the salary that we could. 
We did not dare look for land, but hearing of a lot for sale 
west of the park, and finding a two-story house for rent 
opposite this lot, I asked to see the house and went up- 
stairs where I could look over into the lot which was for 
sale. I saw that it was large enough to put a house upon, 
and found a carpenter who was willing to buy it and hold 
it for the school. The house was begun in October, fin- 
ished in February and cost, all told, seven hundred and 
fifty dollars." 1 

The new home was of ample size, simply planned, and 
built of the cheapest possible material, with every cost 
reduced to a minimum. It not only provided a comfort- 
able home for the family, but became a favorable center 
for evangelistic work for the neighborhood. The seal of 
God's blessing was placed upon this home from the begin- 
ning. " We opened a Sabbath School in our house in the 
early evening, followed by a preaching service. This went 
on for three years, and with the exception of the room 

1 This house was later purchased from Mr. Davis by the American Board and be- 
came the property of the Mission. 



176 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

where the children slept, every room in the house, includ- 
ing the pantry, was often occupied by a class. One hun- 
dred and thirty, and more, assembled in the dining and 
sitting rooms to hear the preaching." 

At a time when the future of the Doshisha was hanging 
in the balance, the building of this home went far toward 
giving a stability to the enterprise in the eyes of both the 
mission and the Japanese officials. The steadfast determi- 
nation of the missionary, who not only believed in the 
school to the extent of putting up a permanent home, but 
paid for it from his own slender resources, convinced the 
Japanese of the futility of further resistance. 

At the mission meeting at Arima, in the summer of 1878, 
the well-worn roots of the Doshisha plant were again ex- 
humed for examination. The two wings of the mission, 
the one in favor of entire self-support, the other advocating 
complete mission control of the school, again combined to 
question the further holding of Kyoto. Outwardly, the 
situation had not improved; permits for extensions of resi- 
dence had been refused; Mr. Doane had left Japan; Dr. 
Taylor, who had been forbidden to practice medicine in 
Kyoto, since his passport allowed teaching but not medical 
practice, had left the city and had settled in Osaka. Messrs. 
Learned and Davis were the only missionaries that were 
left in Kyoto. But through those previous months of 
cumulative difficulty and in the face of the rising tide of 
discouragement over the Kyoto situation in the mission, 
the faith of those two men in the ultimate outcome of the 
enterprise remained unshaken. Their confidence in their 
advisers and colleagues in the Doshisha had been growing; 
they had been learning the temper of the Japanese officials, 
and, more than all else, their belief that the Doshisha was 
in God's hands, and that, in time, the " divine Factor " 
would accomplish, in its own way, what the human factor 
could not do, continued immovable. 



MOVING MOUNTAINS INTO THE SEA 177 

Of the Arima meeting, he wrote: " I well remember the 
moment when the Committee on Schools called Mr. Learned 
and me out, separately, and talked with us, Mr. Learned 
first, and then myself. The committee asked if I thought 
it wise to try to hold Kyoto. I replied by telling the story 
of the fight at Allatoona Pass, in the Civil War, where one 
brigade of our division, under General Corse, placed in a 
little fort to guard the stores of Sherman's Army, met the 
assaults of ten thousand of Hood's forces for six hours, and 
when in the midst of the carnage, with more than half of 
the Union force lying dead in the trenches, General Sher- 
man signalled from the top of Kennesaw Mountain, twenty 
miles away: — 'Hold the fort, for I am coming,' General 
Corse signalled back: — ' I have one arm and one jaw left, 
and can whip all Hell yet.' I told them that was the way 
I felt about Kyoto, and asked if they had any more ques- 
tions to ask. They said: — 'No,' and I retired." 

It is not surprising that a man of such a spirit should 
have been misunderstood and criticised by less intense and 
more cautious colleagues. Though unfair motives and 
methods were laid at his door by a few, a majority of the 
mission admired the spirit which was holding Kyoto, and 
recognizing the rapid advances of the Gospel and the facts 
of progress to which the Kyoto station pointed, decided 
that it was best to hold on. This question was never 
opened again. 



Chapter XIII 
THE UPPER AND NETHER MILLSTONES 

THROUGH the formative years of the Christian move- 
ment in Japan the problem of the self-support of 
the Japanese Church was a generally controverted 
issue. There were two widely contrasted policies advo- 
cated among the workers in Japan. 

On one side it was held that in order to develop inde- 
pendence, self-reliance and the spirit of self-sacrifice among 
Japanese Christians, no foreign money beyond the payment 
of the missionaries' salaries should be spent by the Ameri- 
can Board. It was urged that such a policy, while not 
producing immediate large returns in institutions and con- 
verts, would, in the long run, lay foundations of efficiency, 
self-propagation and of spiritual power in the Japanese 
Church. Not a single church should be put up with for- 
eign money; better to wait until the members had saved 
the funds needed to build; not a pastor or evangelist 
should be placed on a salary guaranteed from outside 
sources; not a school building or a teacher's wage should 
be made possible by foreign gold. Small beginnings but 
sure foundations was the admirable motto of this wing of 
the mission. To vindicate this policy the Osaka Church, 1 
built up to entire independence through the faith and 
heroic efforts of the Osaka missionaries and Christians, was 
justly pointed to as an illustration of what the theory of 
pure self-support could accomplish. 

The position of the other extreme, representing a small 
but aggressive minority, was to hold every phase of the 
Japanese work in the hands of the mission. It was op- 

*To Rev. Paul Sawayama, and Rev. Horace Leavitt, is due, in large part, the 
eredit of this splendid example of an indigenous Japanese church of these early days. 

178 



THE UPPER AND NETHER MILLSTONES 179 

posed to joint ownership of buildings, cooperative pro- 
prietorship or management of schools, or the giving of any 
measure of independence to Japanese churches. Such was 
the Scylla and Charybdis between which the bark of the 
Kumi-ai Church was piloted through those eventful years; 
such the upper and nether millstones of conviction be- 
tween which not only the Doshisha, but all work of the 
American Board, was forced to pass. 

However, a majority of the mission held middle ground. 
They believed that the church should be sustained and 
guided through the formative period until a sense of its 
own powers and needs had been reached, and that the con- 
trol and leadership should be passed over to the Japanese 
as fast as they were able to accept such responsibilities. 

The urgency of the present hour for evangelizing Japan 
appealed to Mr. Davis with overwhelming power and he 
naturally leaned toward a strong financial support of the 
American Board's work. His vivid imagination, his sensi- 
tive appreciation of the infinite value of the individual 
soul, and his conviction of the imminent peril of unsaved 
men, gave him scant patience with a policy that minimized 
the church's immediate duty to save the men and women 
about him who were without Christ. He wrote; " Oh, I 
am sometimes overcome with a perfect rush of feeling as I 
look about me at these surging millions who are going 
down without a knowledge of Him who is mighty to save. 
It comes upon me with crushing weight and prevents rest 
day and night." With this sense of swiftly passing oppor- 
tunity, however, was an appreciation of a comprehensive 
program of self-support. He believed in helping needy 
students, but never without an equivalent of service ren- 
dered; he favored helping churches in the support of pastors 
upon a diminishing scale of subsidy; the supplementing 
of the resources of the Home Missionary society by sending 
out evangelists when the Japanese funds failed. Though 



180 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

admiring the spirit of the self-supporting Girls' School in 
Osaka, be believed that the Japanese resources available 
for the necessary educational program were insufficient. 
14 Get all the money you can for these schools from the 
Japanese," he said, " but do not wait for that. If you do, 
it is like refusing to sow the seed because you cannot reap 
enough seed from ground which has never yet been sown 
to sow other fields." 

At the annual mission meeting of 1877, Mr. Davis read 
a paper upon the subject of self-support, in the hope of 
bringing the mission to a united policy. . . . " In consider- 
ing the various objects connected with evangelization, the 
use of foreign money will mainly depend on three questions: 
First: Is this an object which, like the pastorate, is to be 
continuous, or is it temporary? Second: Is it an object 
which, like the pastorate, is broad, i.e., which will be found 
wherever the Gospel goes in the empire, or is it an indi- 
vidual case, or does it represent a limited number of cases? 
Third: Is it an object which, like the pastorate, directly 
concerns a particular church, or is it more general? It is 
of the first importance to put the objects which have 
length, breadth and directness upon our churches as fast 
as possible. Other objects which, like our own salaries, 
have not these qualities are the last which should be urged 
upon the churches. In addition to these are some objects 
for which money is needed that have only one or two of 
these dimensions." 

Then follows an enumeration of such objects, viz., general 
evangelistic work, Bible and tract work, support of needy 
students and teachers in schools, medical work, etc. Finally, 
objects having neither of the dimensions, as the newspaper, 
mission school buildings, salaries of foreigners in schools, 
endowments, salaries of the teachers of missionaries, and 
salaries and houses of missionaries. " Foreign money can 
be used for the last six objects, with less detriment than 



THE UPPER AND NETHER MILLSTONES 181 

if used for churches, pastors, individual church, mission and 
out-station work. It seems unwise to so press any of the 
last objects upon the churches as to prevent their furnish- 
ing the necessary means for their individual growth. . . . 
In other words, let us press upon our churches the assump- 
tion of those objects which have three dimensions with 
the greatest urgency, those with two dimensions next, and 
so on." 

He presented the following resolutions to the mission for 
consideration: "I. Resolved: That each congregation be 
led, at the earliest moment, to support a pastor, to pay 
the rent on its chapel, to build its own church, to pay the 
incidental expenses of its meetings and the cost of its own 
mission work, and to aid its own young men and women, 
who are in Bible training schools. II. Resolved: That 
the churches be urged to organize a Missionary society for 
sending evangelists to places not yet occupied, and to con- 
tribute as liberally as possible to that work. ... V. Re- 
solved: That the churches assume the work of the prepara- 
tion and circulation of Gospel tracts, and also the circula- 
tion of the Scriptures through this part of the empire, as 
soon as possible. VII. Resolved: That each church 
should be urged to contribute money to aid in the education 
for Christian work of young men and women, other 
than those connected with its own membership, and to- 
ward the running expenses of the Doshisha, beginning with 
the salaries of the Japanese teachers, said funds to be in 
charge of and disbursed by the Doshisha Company, so 
that, as soon as possible, the churches may assume the 
whole responsibility for the running expenses of the school, 
except the salaries of the foreign teachers." 

The mission adopted these resolutions, in part; Japanese 
Home Missionary Society was established and the Do- 
shisha Company organized as outlined, and, although it 
was too early to act upon some of the measures relating to 



182 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

the full independence of churches, the paper became the 
base line upon which the mission, as a whole, built through 
the succeeding years. 

Neither of the extreme wings of the mission was satisfied 
with the financial program presented in this paper. There 
was strong opposition to the provision for helping needy 
students and for subsidizing evangelism. There were at 
this time only a few weak churches, struggling to main- 
tain their position; the work was opening in every direc- 
tion by leaps and bounds; there were many calls for 
evangelists and many places where the people would gladly 
hear, yet in the succeeding year it was voted to use no 
foreign money to support theological students or to pay 
evangelists. 

In the Doshisha was a class of fifteen young men, the 
group from Kumamoto, nearly ready to graduate, and eager 
to consecrate themselves to evangelizing their people. A 
member of the Home Missionary Committee met the class 
and told them that the society could support only two of 
them. Mr. Davis wrote: "The class came to me in great 
trouble. We spent an hour praying and talking over the 
matter, and I finally told them that I was sure that the 
Lord would provide some way for them to preach the Gos- 
pel, to trust Him and go ahead. I promised to divide my 
last crust with them, before they should fail to carry out 
the purpose of their lives. I had no idea, however, how 
the problem was to be solved. After praying over the 
matter for a few days, I wrote a letter to the Board, telling 
the exact facts. I did not criticise the mission or suggest 
any way out of the difficulty. In a month the mission had 
a cablegram from Boston: — 'Hold young men for work; 
await letter.' In another month the letter came, appoint- 
ing the five men first on the field as a committee, to oversee 
evangelistic work, and sending two thousand dollars for 
this committee to use for that work," It seemed to Mr, 



THE UPPER AND NETHER MILLSTONES 183 

Davis as if a voice had spoken to him from Heaven and 
he was thoroughly amazed at the results of his letter. 

Dr. Clark wrote that the Prudential Committee, on re- 
ceipt of his letter, had been greatly troubled and had taken 
this action to save to the work the first graduating class of 
the Doshisha. The mission was naturally disturbed that 
the board should act upon the advice of one of its number, 
without first seeking to learn the views of the mission as a 
whole, but the committee was organized, the instructions 
of the Board followed, and it was decided to go ahead 
cautiously and to write a mild letter of protest to 
Boston. 

A man of intense feeling and glowing convictions, Mr. 
Davis had, to a remarkable degree, the power of kindling 
the fires of his convictions in others. But his enthusiasms 
were usually balanced by the array of hard facts which, 
rather than sentiment, became his final court of appeal. 
Few men could feel so deeply, retain a balanced judgment, 
and marshal evidence with such telling effect. In the face 
of the serious retrenchment in the work of the mission, 
caused by the panic of 1873 and the subsequent years of 
financial depression, he wrote early in 1878, to Dr. Clark: 
— "I do not judge the action of the Board; reduction was 
doubtless necessary. However, I do not believe in sending 
a large army to the front, feeding, clothing and paying 
them, but making their number so large that next to noth- 
ing is left for ammunition. I have myself, as a soldier, 
been put upon half rations of food and even, for a short 
time, upon no rations, but I never before saw an army in 
the field put upon half rations of ammunition. Frequently 
eighty, or even one hundred and twenty, rounds were issued 
to each man, instead of the usual forty, but never five or 
twelve rounds to a man, in front of the enemy in a great 
campaign. Better it would be to recall some of us to work 
at the commissariat, so that enough funds may be left for 



184 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

the rest of the work. It is only as I look up that I see 
light." 

Another example of his unusual power of appeal occurred 
the next year, when the Board was forced to reduce its 
allowances to Japan to the point of cutting down every 
branch of the work. He wrote an article for the " Ad- 
vance," describing the critical nature of the situation and 
stating that he had sent in his resignation to the Board, in 
order that his salary might be applied to help save the 
work unless some other means were found. This letter 
brought an instant and striking response. A man in mod- 
erate circumstances in Illinois sent $500. Another sent 
ten dollars which he had been saving to use for visiting his 
children. Still another aged farmer wrote: — (sic) "I red 
your letter in the ' Advance,' and have gave it some thought 
and the result is I send you $100.00 to lay out in your 
Master's service. You are not accountable to any one but 
your Master how you lay it out. I had a little laid past 
for the rainy day, but I thought best to use this now and 
trust God for the future." When asked to let the money 
go through the Boston Treasurer, he said: — "I had in- 
tended the money to be sent to Mr. Davis as he felt best 
on financial affairs; it might help show him the Lord will 
provide. He can unlock the hearts of men; He opens and 
none can shut. Now I leave it with you to act for the 
Master, for this is a donation to Mr. Davis." This money, 
placed in the hands of the station, was instrumental in 
saving considerable work already begun in the districts 
around Kyoto. 

His diary makes frequent mention of the amazing ways 
in which the Truth was spreading. " I went yesterday to 
Otsu, at the request of a judge whom I had casually met, 
to speak to a group of twenty lawyers. We had a most 
interesting interview of two hours. They want to hear the 
Gospel every Sabbath. Six months ago Mr. Neesima 



THE UPPER AND NETHER MILLSTONES 185 

sent some tracts to the prisoners in the provincial gaol at 
Otsu. One man became greatly interested and taught the rest. 
A few days ago a fire broke out in the prison, and instead 
of trying to escape, as usual, the prisoners helped to put 
out the fire. The wardens inquired the cause of such 
strange conduct, and on being told it was the spirit of 
Christianity, released the man who had taught the others 
and asked for more such books for the prisoners." The 
released man devoted himself to work for ex-convicts, es- 
tablishing a school for unfortunates, in which Messrs. 
Neesima and Davis gave regular Christian instruction for 
some time. " One of our students sent a copy of Martyn's 
1 Evidences of Christianity ' and a year's subscription to 
our paper to a group of teachers who live over six hundred 
miles north of Kyoto. They were Confucian materialists. 
Now they say that they are Christians and plead for a 
missionary to come to teach and baptize them." The 
young men who have been learning English in the anti- 
Christian school are beginning to come around us, appar- 
ently gratified that they are received kindly at our house, 
and I think we shall have quite a class of them next term 
in ' Line upon Line,' perhaps, making the wrath of man to 
praise the Lord through some of them." 

The last official opposition to the teaching of the Bible 
in the Doshisha occurred during the spring of 1879. One 
morning two officials of the Kyoto-Fu visited the class in 
Theology, which was studying the New Testament with Mr. 
Davis. After listening a few minutes one of the officers 
took the Bible from Mr. Davis, looked at the title, handed 
it back and went away. Soon after, Mr. Neesima was 
called to the governor's office and asked why he was 
allowing the Bible to be taught in the school. He replied 
that he did not know of any other system of morality 
equal to that which the Bible contained, and that he 
wished to found his school on the best moral system. 



186 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

The Kyoto-Fu, at this time, instructed the mayors of 
the city wards to advise the people to keep away from 
preaching places and the houses of the missionaries, since 
they had religions of their own which were good enough. 
But in spite of these eddies in the current, the permission 
for a five-year extension of Mr. Learned's passport and the 
granting of that of Dr. Gordon was proof of the firm sup- 
port of the central government. Commenting upon the 
action of the city mayors, Mr. Davis said: — "Some will 
be afraid and stay away, some will laugh and some will 
have their curiosity awakened to come and listen, and the 
Truth, as it is in Jesus, will go on conquering and to con- 
quer. . . . There is reason to believe that we have seen 
our darkest days here." 

As the time drew near for the Kumamoto band to grad- 
uate, they earnestly requested to be ordained to the min- 
istry together, as a fitting culmination of their seven years 
of fellowship. Mr. Davis firmly, but sympathetically, op- 
posed this course. He believed that the disparity of 
numbers between the ordained pastors in the field and this 
large class would make the work appear that of the mission, 
rather than of the Japanese church. He felt the necessity 
of showing the school, the churches and the non-Christian 
Japanese that the movement was essentially a Japanese 
movement, and not one superimposed from abroad. He 
urged patience and the policy of waiting for the call of 
some local church before ordination. 

One unforeseen result of the strong evangelistic policy 
followed from Kyoto and the Doshisha as a center was the 
phenomenal growth of groups of Christians, near and far, 
who desired to be organized into churches, before men 
were ready to minister to them. In a majority of cases 
groups of believers did not realize their need of pas- 
tors, and a situation somewhat analogous to the early 
church of the Roman Empire arose. The people had never 



THE UPPER AND NETHER MILLSTONES 187 

seen a ministry; in places, even, all the members of a 
Christian band felt called upon to preach; why should 
they have a pastor? They had found Christ and banded 
together without one; why cooperate with the Doshisha 
in using its men? Churches without pastors were the rule, 
in this period; those with regularly ordained pastors the 
exception. It was a situation which required the patience 
and resourcefulness of all concerned. "If we could get 
the example before the people and before the young men 
in our school, of half a dozen active, successful pastors who 
are supported by their churches, I should almost feel as if 
we had passed through Jordan to possess the Promised 
Land." 

To meet this difficulty, as well as to provide for the 
training of lay workers and pastors already in the field 
who were without formal training, a three months' course 
in the vernacular was arranged. This offered biblical in- 
struction, the rudiments of Theology, Church History and 
Homiletics, with special courses aimed at meeting the prac- 
tical difficulties experienced by this class of men. The plan 
proved a great success and, while not detracting in the 
least from the dignity of the full theological curriculum, 
largely increased the efficiency of many older workers who 
lacked a thorough education. Other obvious advantages 
were the quickening of the spiritual life of the Doshisha 
through the presence of such earnest men; the emphasis 
which their presence placed upon the importance of prep- 
aration for the ministry; the opening of the eyes of the 
churches to the need of trained pastors and evangelists; 
the bringing of the Doshisha prominently before all the 
churches and giving them a proprietary interest in the 
school, and, finally, in satisfying those critics of the Dosh- 
isha who objected to the elaborate preparation in English 
and Science required of its graduates. Mr. Davis was jubi- 
lant over the success of this vernacular course: "The 






188 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

eagerness of these twenty men to get all they can of the 
truth in three months is indescribable. Seven of us are 
doing all that is possible for them in school and out. I 
feel it a great honor and privilege to teach this class." 

The first commencement exercises of the Doshisha were 
held in the little chapel of the first building, improvised 
by throwing together two recitation rooms. All the mission 
and many members of neighboring churches and friends of 
the school were present. Each of the graduating class of 
fifteen presented an essay or an oration. Mr. Davis had 
no part in the exercises, but busied himself all day with 
seating guests and receiving strangers. Mr. Yamamoto 
made the graduating address, while Mr. Neesima, as presi- 
dent of the school, presented the diplomas. 

Mr. Davis' relationship to the young men of this class, 
who had been placed in his charge by Captain Janes, was 
unusually close. For three years he had given them the 
best of the powers of his mind and heart. He had wrestled 
for them in long hours of supplicatory prayer, that they 
might be held to the fundamentals of the Truth. He had 
wrestled with them in the classroom and in his study over 
the main theological dogmas; together they had searched 
the Scriptures for light upon questions that troubled them. 
He had opened his heart and his home to them, as a father 
or elder brother, lavishing a wealth of sympathy, counsel 
and friendship upon them, as a group and as individuals, 
that had cemented them to him with more than ordinary 
bonds. He was proud of these men ; proud of the spirit they 
had shown, of their history and of their manifest ability. 

However, trained in the broad, independent atmos- 
phere of the Kumamoto school and having entered the 
Christian life with scant acquaintance or respect for theo- 
logical dogma, creed or history, it was inevitable that these 
bold, inquiring minds should chafe under the New England 
theology given them by their enthusiastic teacher. A 



THE UPPER AND NETHER MILLSTONES 189 

majority of the class differed absolutely, from Mr. Davis, 
on not a few of the truths which he considered funda- 
mental. 

Many are the stories that have come down from these 
days of the conflicts which took place in the little theo- 
logical building, " standing in the middle of a mulberry 
field." The subject of the Atonement was the occasion of 
a prolonged debate between the foreign teacher and his 
fifteen theological students. One of them, today a leading 
Tokyo pastor, says: — "One day we came into a debate 
with Dr. Davis on the Atonement ; no matter how minutely 
he argued he could not convince us. He threw himself 
very earnestly into this debate, which lasted thirty days, 
praying and studying every night over the matter. Argu- 
ment upon argument we met; theory after theory we re- 
futed. Finally, though we did not change our opinion, 
we finished the discussion by mutually agreeing that Christ 
devoted his life to men as a mother to her children. At 
the end of this discussion Mr. Davis became ill. Yet with 
all these disputes and arguments, the affection between 
teacher and student increased day by day and lasted their 
long lifetime." 

Another student of the same class says: — "I did not 
consent entirely to his theological standpoint, nor did I 
have much interest in the attitude of his lecturing, but his 
vivid face charmed my heart. When he explained Christ's 
death for humanity, his face was shining and his eyes were 
wet with tears. Therefore I felt that his lectures did not 
come from his brain, but from his heart. His theology, in- 
deed, was with blood and tears." 

When a friend expressed surprise that he had not been 
able to guide more successfully the Kumamoto Band into 
orthodox paths, Dr. Davis replied: — " The teaching of 
that class was like the farmer in the West, who hitched 
two wild colts to a harrow and set out to cultivate the 



190 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

field. To hold them back or guide them, as he wished, 
was utterly impossible. So he just held onto the reins, and 
was dragged about the field, but whenever the harrow 
caught on a stump, and the team thus came abruptly to 
a halt, he would shout ' Whoa,' at the top of his voice." . . . 

11 About a year before they graduated, a professor of 
Hebrew from England was stopping for a week with me, 
and at school prayers he was struck with the long, unkempt 
hair and shabby clothes of the Kumamoto men, for the 
students from the provinces prided themselves on their 
rough appearance. . . . ' Well,' he said, ' in England, in 
such a school as this, the students are compelled to wear a 
neat uniform and when they come into chapel or recitation 
room, they always make a bow to their teachers.' I then, 
gave him the story of this class of fifteen and ended by 
saying that I felt much more like taking my hat off to 
them than like compelling them to make a bow to me." 

He could not bear to see this beloved class, most of 
whom were lacking financial resources, enter the ministry 
without the proper tools for work, and as a result of a 
letter which he wrote to Joseph Cook of Boston, telling 
the history of the Kumamoto band and their need of 
adequate Christian literature, a full set of " Saturday 
lectures upon Science and Christianity " (at this time mak- 
ing a profound impression in New England) was pre- 
sented by Mr. Cook to each man in the class. He also 
raised a fund of four hundred dollars, half of which he 
gave himself, to supply the class with commentaries, dic- 
tionaries and the nucleus of a working library. 

The history of the Kumi-ai Church in Japan for the next 
fifteen years could largely be written from the work of 
this initial class of the Doshisha. The money that the 
Board sent out for evangelistic work enabled the mission 
to set many of these men at once into the field. Though 
less than half the class entered the ministry, the experience 



THE UPPER AND NETHER MILLSTONES 191 



of some of them reads like apostolic history; new fields 
entered, churches of four and five hundred members built 
up, and whole surrounding districts evangelized. Three of 
the class were retained as teachers in the Doshisha, and 
five of them became pastors of prominent churches, of 
whom Messrs. Ebina and Kozaki of Tokyo and Miyagawa 
of Osaka rank among the foremost leaders of the Chris- 
tian movement of the empire. 

Of his work, Mr. Davis wrote in September, 1877: " I 
meet, personally, most of our students, gathered from over 
twenty provinces, many of whom have heard nothing of 
Christianity. I try to interest them, hear their joys and 
sorrows and help them with counsel and sympathy. I give 
Theological instruction to the advanced classes in the ver- 
nacular, which contains but few Theological terms, and 
this is not easy work. Our force of teachers is so small 
that we must combine classes and rotate ourselves around 
the several chairs; this year filling, for example, the chairs 
of Apologetics, Systematic Theology and Old Testament 
Exegesis; next year taking Pastoral Theology, Homiletics 
and New Testament Exegesis, etc. Moreover, the school 
is not the whole of our work. Our house is near the cen- 
ter of a city of 300,000 people, and hundreds come, a few 
to inquire about the ' Way,' but more from curiosity to see 
the foreign home. An art I have been trying to learn for seven 
years is never to be too busy to stop and see these callers, 
nor out of patience while they stay, hour after hour, utterly 
unconscious of the value of time, while you would not 
sell yours for a dollar a minute. Then our house is a 
chapel, filled on the Sabbath with two Sabbath schools, a 
preaching service and an inquiry meeting. A prayer meet- 
ing is held on two evenings and a women's meeting one 
afternoon. We also have a company of young men who go 
out into country towns around, and little praying bands 
are springing up in these places, needing care and teaching 



192 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

to fit them to be crystallized into churches. In the midst 
of this work, we are trying to find a few minutes each day 
for the preparation of Gospel tracts, books and commen- 
taries, of which, as yet, there are few. Saturday is theo- 
retically, and often practically, devoted to a mountain 
ramble. Too busy to be anything but happy." 

The nature of the situation is brought out in his appeal 
to Boston that Dr. Gordon be sent to teach in the Dosh- 
isha: " Doshisha is growing in numbers and in influence 
and is known throughout the empire as ' The Bible School.' 
Nothing but serious mistakes on our part can prevent it 
from becoming a great power for the Kingdom. We are 
giving nearly all of the scientific and English teaching to 
the advanced pupils and are putting our own strength upon 
the Biblical teaching, but we are not sufficient for these 
things. With all the other calls we find our strength lim- 
ited. . . . We must have help here if this school is to go 
on. A new man will not do. We must teach the Bible 
in the vernacular. We set our faces like flints against 
teaching this in English. Mr. Gordon has the language and 
is in full sympathy with the school and is just fitted for 
such a place, for he has the rare faculty* of winning young 
men. His influence would be very great and he would re- 
lieve me more and do better service than any other man 
that can come." 

Dr. Gordon's twenty years of service in the Doshisha, 
which began at this time, more than fulfilled the out- 
spoken convictions of his colleague, but the relief was too 
late to prevent the collapse which had for some time been 
threatening Mr. Davis. He came to the summer of 1879 
in a state of nervous exhaustion, accompanied by insomnia 
and a crushing sense of insufficiency for the task. In the 
winter of 1879, upon the advice of his medical colleagues, 
who feared congestion of the brain, he decided upon a trip 
to China. 



THE UPPER AND NETHER MILLSTONES 193 

The month in China proved a relief, but not sufficient 
to cure the irregularity of pulse nor the pain at the base 
of his brain. The rest of the following summer did not 
materially change his condition, but still he could not bear 
the thought of a long separation from the work and deter- 
mined to try to rest in Japan. A month's stay at Hakone 
Lake with his family was followed by the picturesque return 
to Kyoto by the " Nakasendo," or inland mountain road, 
where they travelled by turns in " jinricksha," " kago," x on 
horseback, cowback, and even packed the children over some of 
the passes on the backs of coolies. He next tried six weeks of 
travel in the southern island of Shikoku and Kyushiu, where 
he attempted no missionary work beyond securing the 
address of a bookstore or a teacher in each town visited. 
To these persons he sent packages of Christian literature. 
Years later, when regular work had been organized in those 
districts, he learned of individuals whom this literature had 
interested in Christianity and who had entered the church. 
Finally, in November, upon the advice of the veteran mis- 
sionary, Dr. Luther H. Gulick, backed by the physicians 
of the mission, he was led to see the danger of further tem- 
porizing with his condition and decided to leave Japan for 
a prolonged rest in Europe and America. 

On January first, 1881, the family sailed for Naples, 
via Suez. From Italy, he wrote: "The momentous ques- 
tion now rises how a man with one hundred dollars salary 
a month can live as a man who has five hundred a month. 
We have finally decided that this conundrum is like the old 
one, ' How can thirteen horses be put into twelve stalls?' 
that it cannot be done." So it turned out that during 
their eight months in Europe this missionary family did not 
once enter a hotel, but stopped at inexpensive pensions or, 
more often, in furnished rooms with the privilege of doing 
their own marketing and cooking. Here the children, aged 

1 Light bamboo palanquin carried by two men. 



194 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

nine, seven and six, were installed with picture-books and 
paint boxes, while the parents studied the art galleries and 
explored the churches and museums of the great cities. 
The summer found them settled in a partially ruined but 
delightful " schloss " in the Bernese Oberland, from which 
Mr. and Mrs. Davis made occasional excursions into the 
higher Alps. 

Various were the economies practiced to solve the enigma 
of expenses. I remember the military precision with which 
my father marshalled his family into a luggage brigade 
upon alighting at a European railway station. Each mem- 
ber was entrusted with responsibility for certain pieces of 
baggage, which he was instructed to let out of his posses- 
sion under no possible circumstance and to " defend with 
your life." Thus equipped, even down to the little six- 
year-old with the family medicine chest and umbrella roll, 
the missionary battalion was put on the march to the near- 
est pension, to the utter rout of the baggagemen and the 
amusement of the passers-by. My father did the market- 
ing and picked up a working knowledge of Italian, French 
and German, which would have been impossible had we 
travelled in a more conventional style. Once I recall the 
whole family, seated upon the baggage in an express wagon, 
being driven across a German city to make a close railway 
connection, while my first voyage down the Rhine will be 
always associated with the third-class deck where the 
missionary family rode, and the crates of geese and ducks 
upon which we children gaily sat and watched the storied 
castles glide by. 

These were some of the means by which the impossible 
was accomplished and we were treated to our first vision 
of the wonders of the Old World. Nor do I recall that it 
seemed a hardship, though our mother, who had not been 
reared to such economies, may have had thoughts all her 
own. It was a grand game, and my father, who had long 



THE UPPER AND NETHER MILLSTONES 195 

since thrown off the burden of Kyoto problems, entered 
so heartily into the humor of every situation and feasted 
so deeply upon the artistic and scenic glories around him, 
that he seemed like a new man and we all caught the infec- 
tion of his spirit. The spot in England which impressed him 
most deeply was the simple stone in the aisle of Westmin- 
ster Abbey, placed over the dust of Livingstone's body, with 
the three words, " Missionary, Explorer, Philanthropist." 

The eight months of travel had brought a substantial 
rest to Mr. Davis' nerves, but had not materially relieved 
the pain at the base of the brain. On arrival in New 
York, he went immediately to Philadelphia to consult Dr. 
S. Weir Mitchell. This nerve specialist found nothing 
organically wrong and advised quiet location, six months 
of complete rest, twelve hours' sleep a day, and plenty of 
good food. The only exceptions to this program, rigidly 
observed, were his attendance at a class reunion at Beloit 
College, where the degree of Doctor of Divinity was con- 
ferred upon him, and his speech at the Annual Meeting of 
the American Board in Portland, Me. At this meeting, 
Mr. Davis was asked to speak upon the press of the work 
in Japan, the inadequacy of Japanese funds, alone, to 
accomplish the program, and the need of more help from 
America. The issue of self-support in Japan was still a 
live one in the Board, and his appeal for an advance all 
along the line, based upon a moderate plan of subsidy, was 
well received. He attended no other missionary gathering, 
but contented himself with writing for the religious press. 
The best of this work was a series of articles published in 
the " Congregationalist," entitled, " Why Has Asia Waited? " 
11 Moral Progress in Japan," and " The Theology of 
Missions." 

A source of cheer were many letters received from Japa- 
nese pastors. One of the Kumamoto Band who had built 
up a great Christian community in the southern island of 



196 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

Shikoku, wrote of the outpouring of the Spirit. " The 
work progresses amazingly here. Tomorrow, seven men 
and one woman will be baptized and two more received 
by letter. ... May God keep you and your family all 
through your way over sea and land, and give you peace, 
both inside and outside." 

While in Oak Park, 111., in the winter of 1881, he could 
not withhold a protest to the Board for the cutting down 
of appropriations for evangelistic work in Japan. A cut in 
this work was a stab at his heart. There is no bitterness 
or disloyalty in his attitude, but a note of optimism that, 
at any rate, other missions would go forward where his 
own could not enter. " Other boards will occupy the field 
and reap the harvest that is so ready and waiting. Well, 
I am glad to see those waiting fields occupied by any loyal 
soldiers. The thirty-six millions of Japan are anxious to hear 
the Gospel and with the Enemy eager to win them, it is 
no time to try experiments. ... I expect to work with our 
mission, but my influence will go toward giving the Gospel 
to the people as soon as possible, and my prayers will go 
up for those of every nation and every mission who are 
doing this." 

He had now been absent from Japan for twenty-one 
months. It was plain that he was decidedly better, though 
the brain difficulty returned when over-tired and, in fact, 
never entirely left him. The last of October found them 
on the Pacific, and before winter they were settled in the 
Kyoto home, having completed the world circuit and an 
absence of nearly two years. 



Chapter XIV 
THE ACORN SPLITS THE BOTTLE 

BY the year 1882, Japan had entered upon an eager 
quest for all things foreign, that swept her along on 
a resistless tide through the decade of the eighties. 
That it was premature and extreme is shown by the com- 
plete reaction which took place during the next decade, 
but, while it lasted, the Island Empire passed through a 
metamorphosis probably experienced by no other nation in 
history in an equal space of years. Not only did Japan, 
during this period, take on many of the outward marks of 
western culture and progress, but her people began to 
adopt foreign ideas and institutions with unprecedented 
rapidity. 

The public attitude toward Christianity underwent a 
transformation. This was shown in the great increase in 
sales of Testaments and Christian books and by the popu- 
larity of Christian meetings. The period was characterized 
by mass meetings in which thousands crowded the halls 
and theatres of the great cities to hear the Christian mes- 
sage. Christianity became a fad; a panacea for all ills, 
individual and national. Churches and workers, Japanese 
and foreign, were swamped with inquiries and applicants 
for baptism. So rapidly did the membership of churches 
increase that sanguine workers predicted that Japan would 
be a Christian nation in ten years. 

The Doshisha, with its graduates spreading to all parts 
of the empire, increased in enrollment, during eight years, 
from 120 to 740 students. Officialdom, so shortly before 
putting every possible obstacle in the way of Christian 
progress, now smiled upon the propaganda and showed 

197 



198 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

marked favors to Christian leaders and publicists. The 
door of the nation was flung wide to the Gospel of Jesus 
Christ, while the Christian world was expecting a speedy 
entrance of the Island Empire into the Kingdom of God. 

Dr. Davis' letters assume a new note of courage and 
optimism. Shortly after his return, he wrote: "We now 
have twenty churches in connection with our mission. 
They have nearly doubled in membership this year as the 
result of the continued presence of God's spirit. Our 
college and seminary have reached a highwater mark. 
Out of 165 students enrolled, 105 are Christians. We have 
nearly thirty in the Theological Department, but the class 
which is graduating next June will not supply one-tenth 
of the places which are calling. The Mikado and members 
of the Cabinet are reported to be studying the Bible, and 
it is not too much to pray that they may be truly con- 
verted. Japan cannot ignore Christianity much longer: 
either her leading men will be converted and influence the 
masses or an eclectic state religion will be proclaimed, pat- 
terned on Christianity. We all feel that we are on the 
eve of stirring events, which may startle the world. These 
subjects are occasions for prayer, especially that the con- 
tinued outpouring and presence of the Spirit, on all our 
churches, may make permanent the heart union which was 
so signally given last year in answer to prayer, and that a 
great company of Japanese workers may be raised up to 
help reap this harvest." 

In the spring of 1883, the Tokyo region was visited with 
an outpouring of God's Spirit. A Doshisha graduate, the 
Rev. H. Kosaki, of Tokyo, wrote to Mr. Davis: — " Thank 
God, He is doing a mighty work here. The day of Pente- 
cost is being realized. Many churches are undergoing the 
baptism of the Holy Spirit. We held meetings every eve- 
ning last week; many confessed their faith in Christ and all 
underwent the most extraordinary experience. Last night 



THE ACORN SPLITS THE BOTTLE 199 

I could not sleep until one o'clock because of the anxious 
inquiries after the Truth. This morning, about half-past 
five, they began to come again to see me. Proud men, 
nominally Christians for many years, have broken down, 
crying like children for pardon and peace." 

This pentecostal experience swept over nearly the whole 
country. Thousands entered the church; many had their 
faith deepened, while in certain places the gracious work 
of the Spirit continued for many months. 

The unparalleled importance of these impressionable years 
for pressing a steady and intense advance, for following 
up the advantage that the Christian church had gained, if 
the empire was to be won for Christ, made a constant 
appeal to Dr. Davis. This is what gave him scant pa- 
tience with policies which temporized with the situation or 
which were proposed as experiments. This was the power 
that drove his pen in the impetuous stream of letters that 
flowed between Kyoto and Boston. " I am more and more 
convinced," said he, " that what we do for Japan must be 
done quickly, and that we must sow beside all waters. 
Dr. Verbeck thinks that Japan will be a Christian nation 
in ten years; Dr. Hepburn, the oldest missionary on the 
ground, puts it at fifteen years. Whether these are too 
sanguine or not, it is very certain that what the West does 
for Japan in this line must be done soon. ... I think that 
there are missionaries on the ground who will see the time 
when their usefulness, save in exceptional cases, will be at 
an end, when the Japanese Church will have assumed such 
a position of strength and independence that it can 
work better in most lines without the foreign element. 
We are now laying the foundations and determining the 
ratio of the geometrical proportion which will bring these 
millions into the Kingdom of God." 

After outlining the steady progress in the various depart- 
ments of Japanese life, and emphasizing the wonderful 



200 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

growth of moral ideas, with the attending expansion of the 
Christian movement, he says: " If the increase in the Prot- 
estant churches goes on for the next ten years in the same 
ratio as that of last year, we shall have in Japan, at the 
end of that time, over 400,000 Christians. What does this 
mean of responsibility and work for all concerned! If we 
are to give any Biblical training to the pastors who are 
needed for this work, we will have to greatly enlarge the 
Doshisha. . . . The eyes of the nation are on this school 
with hope and expectation. Many of the Christians of 
other denominations are looking to it as the most hopeful 
spot in Japan. Sixty of the leading men of Kyoto recently 
met to hear addresses on Christianity and the plan of 
Christian colleges in America, and decided to use their 
influence and to give their money to endow the Doshisha, 
choosing two of their company to be the trustees of the 
fund they are raising. The faith of the Japanese Christians 
is another element to be reckoned with. Prominent pastors 
and many church members are praying and anticipating 
that Japan may become a Christian nation in a few years, 
and that they may soon have a corps of workers in Corea 
and China. The Christians seem pervaded by a simple, 
humble faith, a taking of God at His word, and the preach- 
ing of the simple cross of Christ. I do not believe that 
there is any limit to the work which God may do through 
such instruments. Then, again, the prayers of the world 
are being poured out for Japan. . . . There is power in 
prayer; will it not avail for Japan? What then is our 
responsibility; what is your duty and responsibility? I 
cannot measure, describe or picture it. 

11 Among the mountains beyond us is a band of over 
thirty Christians who have recently come to Christ, with 
almost no teaching. They need a pastor; we have no one 
to send. In Takahashi a church has grown to over one 
hundred in a few months, but the young man who was 



THE ACORN SPLITS THE BOTTLE 201 

laboring there has broken down and we have no one to 
take his place. Fukui, one hundred miles north, has been 
calling for a pastor for five years, but no man can be sent. 
Indeed, it seems as if Kyoto would absorb all the pastors 
which our school can turn out for some years to come. 
The present, in Japan, is like the opening of our Civil War 
in America, when the West Point graduates could not fill 
one position in a hundred of those which needed to be 
filled. I thank God that He can use others. Pray for 
us all." 

In the spring of 1883, he advised Mr. Neesima to en- 
large the Doshisha Company by adding several of the 
strongest available men to the Board of Trustees, whose 
number was now increased to five. 

The basis of the Doshisha Company, which was the writ- 
ten form of the understanding existing from the beginning 
between the Japanese and the American Board Mission, 
is as follows: 

1. The " Doshisha Company " shall consist of five mem- 
bers, who shall own the property of the company, and see 
that it is used for the maintenance of Christian schools, 
and shall have charge of all business arising between said 
schools and the Japanese government. 

2. Said company shall perpetuate itself, electing members 
to fill vacancies, and shall elect one of its number as presi- 
dent of the schools. 

3. All the internal affairs and arrangements of the school 
shall be administered by the regular Japanese and foreign 
teachers of each school, in company with the president. 

4. Money sent to the schools by foreign friends shall be 
expended under the direction of the foreign teachers, or 
other representatives of the donors, after consultation with 
the president and the Japanese teachers of each school, 
respectively. 

At this time the real estate on which the homes of some 



202 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

of the missionaries stood, which till now had been held 
in Mr. Neesima's name, was transferred to the Doshisha 
Company. Of this transfer and the legal status of the 
Doshisha property, he wrote to Dr. Clark, May 23rd, 1883: 
" The company is composed of the best and most stable 
men that we have and those who are, and always have 
been, in full sympathy with the mission and its policy, 
but it should be understood that the mission and the 
Board have no legal claim on this property in Kyoto, for it 
is impossible for foreigners to own real estate in Japan, 
save on the concessions in the treaty ports. This company, 
organized on this basis, with the understanding that no 
changes are to be made in the basis or in the members of 
the company without consulting us, is the best possible 
arrangement that can be made under the circumstances in 
Japan. But it would not be possible to recover one cent 
here in court, if they should turn us out. I hope that this 
is made plain. This could only happen in case of a com- 
plete break between the Japanese and us, for they under- 
stand that they hold this property in trust for the united 
work which we are to do by means of it. Dr. Clark has 
added, ' We take the risk,' and Mr. Allchin feelingly said 
the other day in our mission meeting, ' We have our pay 
for our investment already in the young men who have 
gone out from the school and are at work." 

In September, 1884, the entering class was double that 
of any preceding year, and the problem of housing the new 
boys arose. In asking the Board for an appropriation for 
new dormitories, he wrote: "Things are moving faster, far 
faster than our mission as a whole moves. We are crowded 
on by the work instead of planning and preparing for it. 
For this there is no help, but I want you to know why we 
ask for such great things and, in time, so as to be ready 
for the work." He wrote of the evangelistic theatre meet- 
ings held in the towns of Nagahama and Hikone, attended 



THE ACORN SPLITS THE BOTTLE 203 

by upwards of 700 men: — "They were largely middle- 
aged and aged men and the attention through three to 
four hours was perfect. I shall never forget the upturned 
gaze of those men, many with mouths as well as ears wide 
open, a symbol of the attitude of all Japan today. The 
thought of it haunts me. We cannot begin to speak to 
the millions who want to hear." 

The Buddhist and Shinto forces were not submitting 
without a struggle to the giant strides of the foreign faith. 
They scattered seditious literature regarding Christianity, 
they hired rough characters to break up Christian meetings 
and made open threats of violence. But the government 
had taken a clear stand on the question of religious free- 
dom and gave open protection to Christian gatherings. In 
the fall of 1884, a letter was placed in Mr. Learned's post- 
box addressed to " The four American Barbarians, Davis, 
Gordon, Learned and Greene," which read: — "I speak to 
you who have come with words which are sweet in the 
mouth, but are a sword in the heart; bad priests; Ameri- 
can barbarians; four robbers. You have come from a far 
country with the evil religion of Christ and as slaves of the 
Japanese robber Neesima, with bad teaching you are grad- 
ually deceiving the people, but we know your hearts, and 
hence we shall inflict with Japanese sword the punishment 
of heaven upon you. Japan being truly an excellent 
country, in ancient times, when Buddhism first came, those 
who brought it were killed; in the same way you must be 
killed. But we do not want to defile the sacred soil of 
Japan with your abominable blood; for this reason, we 
will wait two weeks, within which you must leave Kyoto 
and go to America, if not, the robbers of the Doshisha and 
all believers of this way in the city, will be killed; hence 
take your families and go quickly." (Signed by) "Patriots 
in the peaceful city, believers in Shinto." The only com- 
ment Mr. Davis made upon this letter was: " Of course, 



204 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

this is only buncombe, but it shows the spirit that is 
working against us; for a while Christianity was ignored, 
then it was ridiculed; now it is feared and the whole situa- 
tion is most encouraging." 

The spirit of independence and of impatience with 
foreign control and even with cooperation, was growing 
rapidly among the Japanese leaders. Mission boards and 
missionaries were freely criticized for assuming credit in 
their reports for work that was largely accomplished by the 
Japanese. There was increasing restiveness over the use 
of foreign money, while the statement was often heard that 
Japan was not a missionary country in the sense that other 
lands were fields of mission activity. Among the larger 
Kumi-ai churches of the north a movement arose for an 
independent Japanese church to include all denominations 
and to be operated separately from mission boards. 

A prominent Tokyo pastor was deputed to present 
a statement of the plan to the missionaries of the American 
Board through Mr. Davis, who was asked to criticize the 
plan. He did this in a clear, forceful, but loving letter. 
Parts of this letter, which was the beginning of a consider- 
able correspondence upon the subject, between himself and 
the Japanese leaders, are typical of the spirit in which he 
dealt with his Japanese colleagues, a spirit both fearless 
and kind, speaking the absolute truth, as he saw it, yet 
showing through it all the love of an elder brother in 
Christ. After detailing the points upon which the propo- 
sition for entire independence rested, he said: " There is no 
official connection between the Congregational churches of 
Japan and the American Board Mission. We have not a 
shred of power over them and no control, save as coun- 
sellors, and that only in so far as they choose to receive our 
counsel. ... It is true that the Congregational churches 
in Japan are reported to the American Board by us, but 
not in any official relation. Do you object to being re- 



THE ACORN SPLITS THE BOTTLE 205 

ported as Congregational churches? We are the represen- 
tatives of the Congregational churches in America. We 
and they have had a humble part in this work. They are 
expending $40,000 a year in this work now; they educated 
and have supported Mr. Neesima; they have put many 
thousands of dollars into the Doshisha, where you and 
many of your colleagues have studied; we are now asking 
them to help your church building and your newspaper 
enterprise. 

" This work in Japan up to this time has been, largely, 
a seed-sowing work. Do you desire that when the seed 
springs up and bears fruit and the harvest is being reaped, 
it should not be reported to the home churches? 

11 Do we owe nothing to this great army of friends that is 
behind us, bearing us up in their hands and on their hearts 
before God? How can Christ's words, John iv, 36, be ful- 
filled : ' That both he that soweth and he that reapeth 
may rejoice together,' if we make no reports? . . . You ask 
us to beget children, to travail in birth for them, to care 
for them during their tender years and then not even to 
count them. If this is a wrong analogy, then we are not 
real missionaries. . . . We cannot leave home, family and 
country, and come here and do ever so humble a work for 
these souls without loving them as our own children. There 
is no other tie between us; we would have no other tie 
but love; we cannot cut that; you cannot cut it. We con- 
sider you perfectly free and independent; on the American 
plan of parents and children, we want you to set up inde- 
pendent houses, but we must love you; you must let us 
report your numbers and increase to the thousands in 
America who love you and are praying for you. In so 
reporting, we are deeply conscious that the Infinite Factor 
does nearly all the work, and to Him be all the glory." 

He urged the desirability of working in cooperation, 
strongly deprecating a step which would set off the Japa- 



206 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

nese churches as a rival body to the mission. He pointed 
out that the strength of the whole movement lay in mutual 
cooperation, trust and love; that the proposal to gather 
the churches of all denominations into an independent 
Japanese church was impossible; that it would make the 
church of Japan virtually a Congregational church, and 
that none of the other missions in the country would con- 
sider such a plan; that it would, instead, bring opposition 
and suspicion upon the whole Congregational movement in 
Japan. He further showed that such a plan would meet 
with stout opposition from many of the leading Japanese 
Kumi-ai workers, and that it would ruin Mr. Neesima's 
hopes of securing further endowment for the Doshisha. 
Finally, he wrote: "Such a separation as you propose 
will have very far-reaching influences; nothing else has 
ever united the Japanese and foreigners together; cannot 
Christianity do it? It professes to be able to. If we sepa- 
rate, Christianity will seem to have failed in one of its 
important functions. Can we afford to let this example of 
the power of Christ fail? ... I fully believe that if we will 
but let theories alone, and with hearts filled, united and 
melted together with the love and spirit of Christ, clasp 
hands in this work for these millions for whom he died, 
we will forget our nationalities and that God will use us to 
do a mighty work here in Japan." 

His time and thought through the spring of 1885 was 
largely given to the question of the organization of the 
Japanese churches, which he considered of the utmost im- 
portance as a means of diverting the more restless spirits 
from the independence movement, of facilitating the growth 
of the church and of correlating and rendering more 
effective its activities. While he honored the spirit that 
prompted the desire for a purely Japanese movement, his 
close personal relation to many of the leaders made him 
sensitive to the custom of excluding missionaries from con- 



THE ACORN SPLITS THE BOTTLE 207 

ferences and committee meetings, which was common at 
this time. " I felt it keenly last June, at the meeting of 
the Missionary Society, when I would have given a dollar 
a minute to speak to those men thirty minutes, but no 
foreigner was asked to speak. I do not mention this to 
discourage you; I am not discouraged. Our outlook was 
never so bright before, but you have laid out a great plan 
for us, and I want you to realize a few of the difficulties 
in the way. We will do all we can, but we have not power 
to work miracles ; only God can do that and he may in 
this case. ... It is natural that one should magnify his 
own work, but I am more and more convinced that our 
school here is the strongest existing bond of union between 
the mission and the churches." 

The year 1884 will be remembered in the spiritual 
history of the Doshisha as the year of a remarkable revival 
which has had few parallels in the records of supplicatory 
prayer. The fall of 1883 was a period of speculation and 
doubt in the school, and among the churches. Several of 
the faculty were deeply concerned and frequently met to- 
gether for prayer for the Doshisha. The Week of Prayer, 
in January, passed without special results. It was con- 
tinued a second week, with a general meeting each evening 
for prayer for the outpouring of God's Spirit. However, 
no visible results came. A group often continued praying 
daily. Early in February, Mr. Davis wrote a letter to 
forty colleges and theological schools in the United States, 
asking for special prayer for the pouring out of God's Spirit 
upon the school. The weeks wore on with no change in 
the situation. 

Sabbath, the sixteenth of March, dawned, a radiant 
morning. The day passed as usual, but before night, un- 
known to the teachers, an invisible power swept through 
the Doshisha. During the long night hours nearly all of 
the one hundred and fifty students, Christians and non- 



208 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

Christians alike, wrestled under an agony of conviction of 
sin with their Maker. Mr. Davis records of this experi- 
ence: — "That week will never be forgotten; the boys 
could not sleep, but spent the nights in strong crying 
to God for themselves and for others. During this whole 
period there was no preaching; no exhortation; the move- 
ment was entirely spontaneous. The whole school has been 
transformed. Thirty-seven are asking for baptism and all 
but ten in the Doshisha consider themselves Christians." 

The most remarkable feature of this work was not 
the number of conversions, but rather the experience of a 
new joy and peace, a consciousness of the power of the 
Gospel, and a devotion to their Lord, shared in common by 
nearly all the Christian students. .An irresistible impulse 
impelled them to preach the Gospel and it took firm hand- 
ling to keep the School from being emptied. This, with 
the nervous excitement under which many of the students 
were living, was a cause for deep concern to the faculty. 
" We kept steadily at our work, excusing none from reci- 
tations. . . . Thursday, a group of young men came to my 
house to ask if they could have funds with which to go to 
preach. I put oft the first company, but soon a second 
group came, on the run. out of breath, trembling with ex- 
citement and saying that they were going to obey God 
and not man, and that the Spirit told them to go and 
preach. They said, ' Sayonara,' and started for the door. 
I cried, ' Hold on, I want to show you a passage of Scrip- 
ture,' seized a Bible and read I John, chapter four, which 
begins, ' Beloved, believe not even.- spirit, but prove the 
spirits whether they are of God. because many false proph- 
ets are gone out into the world. Hereby, know ye the 
spirit of God,' etc. This caught their attention and they 
came back and sat down. We talked and prayed together 
and they were completely melted, saying that Satan had 
been leading them and that they would wait until after 



THE ACORN SPLITS THE BOTTLE 209 

examinations. This was followed by a general meeting of 
the students, many of whom came with their bundles upon 
their backs ready to start. The faculty and two of the 
older students finally quieted them, and a compromise was 
made by which three students were at once allowed to 
go out into evangelistic work. The Doshisha quieted down 
and the year closed without further incident." 

The source of this wonderful experience was not difficult 
to find. About the middle of April answers to the letters 
sent to America, asking for intercessory prayer for the 
Doshisha, began to arrive. They told how from the 12th 
to the 17th of March, the day of the revival in the Dosh- 
isha, groups of students in different parts of the United 
States had united in prayer for the Doshisha, with a fer- 
vor of supplication and of faith that some of these schools 
had never before known. This revival gave an evangelistic 
impulse to the Doshisha which resulted in a large number 
of students devoting their lives to the ministry; it made 
the power of prayer and the presence of the Spirit of God 
mighty and vivid realities to Mr. Davis; it stimulated a 
fresh interest in the Doshisha among a large circle of 
friends in America, and it quickened the spiritual life of the 
whole Kumi-ai church, which now underwent a period of 
remarkable growth. 

The illness of Mrs. Davis through the autumn and 
winter of 1885 was a cause for deepest concern. He wrote: 
— "I do not look far into the future, and I am glad that 
I cannot, content to know that there is One who knows all 
and has planned it all in the best way. Whatever comes 
with His blessing will be only blessing for us." The death 
of his wife, in April, 1886, necessitated an eight months' 
absence from Japan, in which Dr. Davis found a home for 
the three older children in Oberlin, Ohio, in the family of 
Rev. Wm. Mellen, a veteran missionary of the American 
Board. 



210 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

It is probable that the sphere of influence of the true 
missionary wife, in the early period of any field, can never 
be correctly estimated. Behind the outstanding achieve- 
ments of nearly every pioneer of the modern Church has 
stood a frail figure, cast in heroic mould, clasping hands with 
her husband in accomplishing the impossible. God, only, 
knows the contribution of unfailing cheer, superb loyalty, 
silent suffering, secret prayer and heroic faith laid by the 
wives upon the altar of foreign missionary service. 

After seeing the children well started in school, he re- 
turned to Japan with the baby, then eighteen months old. 
11 I said, ' goodbye,' to the children one evening and took 
the west-bound train for Chicago. It seemed as if it must 
take an extra amount of steam to pull the train, so strongly 
was I drawn to those I had left behind." Many were sur- 
prised at his return to Japan under these circumstances, 
but to some, this decision to separate from the motherless 
family became a supreme inspiration. Especially was this 
true of his Japanese friends. One of his old pupils who was 
in America wrote him: — "One thing I have had in my 
heart since the coming of the news of Mrs. Davis' death, 
which I must speak out. I refer to your decision to go 
back to Japan, leaving your children in the hands of 
strangers. I think this decision of yours moved me and 
gave me greater good than all your teaching put together. 
This one act, in deciding to return again to your work, has 
given a new view of the Christian life to all my classmates, 
and I think to hundreds of Christians there." 

On returning to Japan in the late winter of 1887 the 
hospitable home of his close colleague, Dr. Dwight W. 
Learned, was opened to himself and little daughter. They 
shared the comforts of this home for more than a year, little 
Helen being mothered so genuinely by Mrs. Learned that 
the father was free to carry on his teaching, as before, in 
the Doshisha. His second marriage occurred July 10th, 



THE ACORN SPLITS THE BOTTLE 211 

1888, to Miss Frances Hooper, of Worcester, Mass., a mem- 
ber of the mission who had served efficiently for five years 
on the faculty of the Girls' School in Kyoto, and who had 
been a warm friend of the Davis family. The new home 
that was established was an exceedingly happy one, its 
cordial hospitality through the next twenty-two years 
making effective one of the most fruitful phases of Dr. 
Davis' whole missionary work. Two sons, Louis and 
Jerome, came to join little Helen in completing the family 
group. 

The rapid growth of the Doshisha and the corresponding 
need of better equipment were constantly on his heart. 
His letters to the Board, pleading for the school, represent- 
ing what the investment of a little money could do in mak- 
ing it a more efficient instrument for redeeming Japan, 
number over two hundred during this one period. The lack of 
adequate equipment, with the pro-foreign wave which was 
sweeping Japan, was draining the school of many of its best 
students who, dissatisfied, were leaving for America and 
Europe. Of the Doshisha's lack of modern equipment and, 
especially, of a reference library and scientific apparatus, he 
wrote in 1884: — " If we are to satisfy our young men we 
must have such a school here that we can say to them, 
1 Doshisha is as good a school in which to lay the founda- 
tions of an education as there is in the United States.' You 
are doing nobly by us, but the cutting off of these things 
is like cutting off the oil needed to lubricate a costly engine 
— it will run, but it runs at a loss which bears no compari- 
son to the cost of the oil which is denied." 

The dedication of the Nurses' School and the opening of 
the new library, on November 15th, 1887, presented a re- 
markable scene. The Doshisha chapel was crowded with 
four hundred representative men of the city. On the plat- 
form sat, as guests of honor, the Governor of Kyoto Fu, 
the two city Mayors, the Chairman of the Kyoto Assembly 



212 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

and representative physicians of the city, from all of whom 
congratulatory addresses were received. " When we think 
of the storm of opposition in the midst of which the 
Doshisha struggled for life during the first five years of its 
existence, it seems little less than miraculous to witness this 
scene. No one can measure the greatness of the impres- 
sion for good which has been made today." ..." Re- 
cently, Viscount Hijikata of the Imperial Household De- 
partment visited us and addressed all the students in the 
chapel. After his speech, Govenor Kitagaki of Kyoto 
turned to the Viscount and asked him to speak of Doshisha 
to the Emperor. The eyes of the nation are upon us and 
we wish to make our school better in every way so that it 
may be indeed a pattern to this people." 

In the fall of 1888 occurred the memorable visit of 
Luther D. Wishard, from which dates the organization of 
the first regular Young Men's Christian Association in 
Japan. It was in his home, where Mr. and Mrs. Wishard 
were entertained, that the basis of the future Association 
union for Japan was first discussed. Mr. Wishard, in com- 
pany with Mr. John T. Swift, who had recently come to 
Japan as the first foreign secretary of the International 
Committee, spent several weeks at the Doshisha, holding 
evangelistic meetings. Dr. Davis wrote of this work: "We 
had been praying for a blessing in connection with Mr. 
Wishard's visit, and it came. Our new home was full of 
students. Fifty crowded into our parlor and sat on the 
floor to listen to Mr. Wishard, while Mr. Swift would have 
another company in the dining room and sometimes a third 
group met in the study. As a result of this revival, one 
hundred and three students united with the church the 
next March." 

The period closes with another triumphal report of the 
school year of 1889: — " Of the 740 students, 495 are Chris- 
tians. One hundred and sixty-five have been baptized 



THE ACORN SPLITS THE BOTTLE 213 

from the two schools during the last year. Our graduation 
exercises begin tomorrow and, on Satuday, Mr. Wishard's 
Summer School begins; we are expecting many from out- 
side and are praying for rich results." 

Through the year 1887 the plan for organic union be- 
tween the Congregational and Presbyterian churches, which 
had been gathering headway for some time, was fairly 
broached. Liberal concessions were made upon both sides, 
an apparently workable basis of union was presented by the 
joint committees and a majority of the Japanese leaders, 
and the missionaries in both churches favored the plan. 
However, the rank and file of the Kumi-ai churches were 
fearful lest their liberties would be curtailed under the new 
basis, and, after nearly two years of negotiation, the matter 
was dropped. 

It was a source of keen regret to Dr. Davis, who had 
been appointed to serve upon the Committee from the 
American Board Mission, that he could not favor this union 
movement, whose predecessor in the seventies he had so 
earnestly supported. With the spirit of united missionary 
effort he was in hearty sympathy, but he believed that this 
particular movement was being promoted along lines which 
would not foster a union of all bodies in Japan, but rather 
the strengthening of one of the leading bodies. 

He published his views upon the union question, drawing 
attention to what he considered impracticable in the plan. 
He felt a deep obligation to the Congregational churches 
which were behind the work in Japan, and this, with his 
loyalty to the American Board, prevented him from sup- 
porting a movement which had the cordial backing of 
nearly all the members of his mission. Finally, he was 
convinced that though the Japanese were promoters of 
the general plan of union, the particular form in which it 
was to be effected did not originate with them, and that 
although it had received the assent of the Japanese mem- 



214 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

bers of the committee, it did not approve itself to a ma- 
jority of the Kumi-ai churches and that the result would 
be a split within the Congregational body in Japan. He 
wrote: "The union is very much like the wolf and the 
lamb lying down together, but with the lamb lying down 
inside the wolf : — the principal change which the wolf 
undergoes in the operation is to become bigger. I can only 
speak for myself: it is better for others who are in favor 
of the plan to take my place on the committee." 

Dr. Davis took this occasion to draw the attention of 
the American Board to one of the causes of this movement 
away from their denomination by the Japanese churches, 
namely, that some recognition of the church in Japan by 
the Congregational body in the United States was neces- 
sary to help to bind them to the home body and strengthen 
their sense of entity. He feared lest the very element in 
the Congregational polity which he most admired, its inde- 
pendence, would become the undoing of the Japanese 
church, unless a definite relationship with other bodies 
of the same denomination could be effected. "If some 
plan could be arranged by which Japanese Christians who 
are members of Congregational churches may be recog- 
nized as Congregationalists, it would be a source of strength 
to the work in Japan." 



Chapter XV 
" REACTION " 

THE new decade opened with an irreparable loss to the 
Doshisha in the death of its beloved president. Dr. 
Neesima, in spite of failing strength, had for fifteen 
years carried the executive burden of the school. In the 
fall of 1889, while working in Tokyo for an endowment 
fund, he was taken with serious symptoms and after a short 
illness passed away at the age of forty-seven in the seaside 
town of Oiso, near Yokohama. It seemed to Dr. Davis in 
the loss of this friend as if the sheet-anchor of the Dosh- 
isha was gone, for he well knew the priceless nature of the 
service that Dr. Neesima had rendered the whole enter- 
prise. Together they had faced the opposition of Govern- 
ment and priests; together they had prayed and struggled 
through the years when the life of the school hung in the 
balance. They had leaned upon each other, supplement- 
ing one another to a remarkable degree. They had seen 
eye to eye in nearly all the important problems connected 
with the growth of the Doshisha, and they shared the same 
consuming passion that it might become a prolific source 
of the future spiritual workmen of Japan. 

Some thought them a strangely mated pair, " the father 
and the mother of the Doshisha," as they were called; the 
tense, energetic, explosive soldier missionary and the gentle, 
steadfast, yet no less intense Japanese educator, burning 
with an exalted purpose that his country should be re- 
deemed through this Christian college. Of Dr. Neesima's 
death, he makes comment in his diary: — " I doubt if Mr. 
Neesima's place in the Doshisha can ever fully be filled. . . . 
The secret of his great success was not his intellect nor his 

215 



216 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

executive ability, which were, perhaps, above the average. It 
lay in his strong faith, love and zeal; in his perseverance and 
patience; and these came not naturally, but because he 
had God with him. He did all things through Christ, 
who strengthened him. He had a high aim, and a holy 
ambition to carry it out, from which no difficulty could 
turn him. He was conscious that God was with Him, that 
his purpose was in harmony with God's, that his ambition 
was like Christ's. He trusted not his own strength, but 
wrestled continually with God in prayer, to use him and 
give his aim success." Speaking of the constructive ability 
and self-control of the Japanese leader, he said: — "Stand- 
ing here for eight years between two, three and even four 
opposing factions, fired into by the whole of them and hav- 
ing to just stand and take it from them all, without answer- 
ing back or breaking with any of them, he has borne a 
greater strain than falls to a dozen ordinary men in one 
generation." 

The Japanese reaction of the nineties against western 
influences and thought found its inception in the crest of 
the pro-foreign wave that swept the nation in the previous 
decade and which, like most extreme movements, had soon 
spent its force. Intense application in the school of foreign 
civilization had opened the eyes of the people to the flaws 
as well as the glories of western culture. They found that 
x\nglo-Saxon life could not be slipped on, " in toto," as a 
garment, and, moreover, that it had unsuspected deficiencies. 
The irritation caused by the presence of extra-territorial 
courts in the treaty ports, and the growing realization that 
the treaty powers had taken advantage of Japan's lack of 
experience in matters of revenue tariff and perpetual leases, 
was extreme and swelled the tide of the anti-foreign spirit. 
With this awakening there was growing a consciousness of 
power which protested against the dominance of a foreign 
regime. With the promulgation of the Constitution in 1890 



"REACTION" 217 

a new era of democracy was opening which was marked 
by the discounting of western influence and the conserva- 
tion of the best of the old Japanese life. 

Popular thought regarding religion and philosophy did 
not escape this national trend. Materialism, never far 
separated from the philosophy of Confucius, was in the air. 
The educated classes in Japan, for centuries under the in- 
fluence of the Chinese sage, were naturally inclined to 
Materialism and found insuperable dihiculties in the ac- 
ceptance of the so-called " supernatural." They bulwarked 
the theories of Huxley and Spencer with their own Confu- 
cian philosophy and considered themselves emancipated 
from the " superstitions " of all religion. 

Materialistic and radical literature, circulated in large 
quantities among the people, began to cool the religious 
interest of the previous decade. Among church leaders 
there grew a passion for the new in Theology. The tide 
of higher criticism and speculation which was approaching 
its flood in Europe and America completely charmed the 
Japanese students who went abroad, and they returned to 
their native land thoroughly imbued with radical theories. 
believing them well suited to a nation that, like Japan, 
had discarded the old for the new. The rapid growth of 
church membership was checked, several prominent pastors 
who had led in the previous advance of evangelical Chris- 
tianity now left the pastorate and, in some cases, turned 
squarely against the Truth which they had been foremost 
in teaching; others continued their ministry with so much 
of doubt and coldness in their preaching as to stagger the 
spiritual life of their churches: the religious press was 
filled with speculation and attacks upon evangelical founda- 
tions of faith; Christianity was stigmatized as a foreign 
religion, and missionaries were accused of having taught 
obsolete husks of truth, while Christians were urged to find 
for themselves the meat of the whole matter. A Japoni- 



218 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

cized Christianity, based upon Confucian ethics, and com- 
bining the best elements of all religions; a popular eclecti- 
cism, was urged, as the " sine qua non," for Japan. 

This wave of reaction dealt the Doshisha a heavy blow. 
The school had experienced an era of extraordinary pros- 
perity. Within a decade, its enrollment had increased 
fourfold, its buildings from four to fourteen and its en- 
dowment from nil to $165,000. From being an object of 
hatred and opposition, it had passed to a position of favor 
with local and imperial governments, and it enjoyed a place 
of prestige and leadership among the Christian schools in 
the empire. 

It had not, however, escaped the change incident to rapid 
expansion and material prosperity. The School of Science, 
built and endowed through the generous gift of Mr. Harris, 
of New London, Ct., a personal friend of Dr. Learned, had 
substantially strengthened the Doshisha, and was now 
manned by specialists. The little band of teachers which, 
in the early days, had been welded together by the common 
struggle for existence and was permeated with a central evange- 
listic purpose, had grown to a large faculty composed of diverse 
elements. The same spiritual fervor could h. rdly be main- 
tained under the new conditions; it was natural that pro- 
fessors should be absorbed in their laboratories and re- 
search rather than in the soul's salvation of their students. 
On the other hand, teachers complained that the rules were 
too severe and lent themselves to infringement. 

Dr. Davis felt the condition of the school as keenly as 
though it had been that of a son. He urged that the 
rules, if impossible of enforcement, should be abolished, 
but that as long as they stood, the honor of the Doshisha 
and the integrity of students and teachers, alike, demanded 
their strict observance. It cut him to the quick to see the 
class-prayer meetings and chapel prayers neglected, the 
apparent lack of interest shown by many of the teachers in 



" REACTION" 219 

the spiritual welfare of the students, and the more worldly 
atmosphere that was entering the school. 

One of the clearest indications of the changed spirit of 
the Doshisha occurred during the visit of Captain Janes in 
1893. Several of his old pupils, now professors in the 
college, had felt deeply that when Captain Janes had been 
in trouble in the United States some of the missionaries, 
and, especially, Dr. Davis, had not duly supported his 
cause, and now when their beloved teacher came to deliver 
a course of lectures in the Doshisha, they naturally were 
inclined to lionize him. In his lectures before the student 
body, " he denounced theological instruction, criticized the 
Church as the enemy of progress and liberty, sneered at 
missionaries, denied the existence of a personal God and 
ridiculed fundamental Christian doctrines. The foreign 
teachers remonstrated with the person, who in the absence 
of the president, was in charge of the school, but he refused 
to interfere with the liberty of the students to have such 
lectures as they desired. Fortunately, the students them- 
selves, after two or three lectures, were unwilling to listen 
to more. They went to the lecturer, saying they did not 
care to have the course continued, and one of the advanced 
pupils, who had acted as interpreter, made a public apology 
for having aided a person who was trying to tear down 
what Dr. Neesima had built up." x "As time went on, the 
missionaries felt more and more that their influence was 
being undermined, especially by some of the teachers who, 
at the morning chapel exercises, in the class room and in 
public journals, ridiculed them and their teaching. The 
missionaries were not alone in considering that the school 
was proving unfaithful to the principles on which it had 
been founded, for many of its alumni and friends grieved 
over what was being done, 2 Dr. Davis had not been blind 

1 Cary, " A Hi3tory of Christianity in Japan," p. 257. 
« Ibid. 



220 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

to the approaching reaction. Four years before, in 1888, 
he had written: " I believe we are to soon enter a period 
of fierce theological controversy in Japan which will try 
men's souls and have very far-reaching results." May 3rd, 
1890, he wrote: "The next few years are going to be try- 
ing ones for the school; Mr. Neesima's death and the re- 
action that is upon us, added to great pecuniary distress, 
will diminish our students. There is a wide discussion 
going on in the Japanese religious papers in regard to inspira- 
tion. . . . God's truth will come off victorious at last, but 
I do not want German history repeated in Japan. The 
present reaction is a healthy one; it is going temporarily 
too far, but the church will soon come back again, not to 
the old place, but to a better one. The anti-foreign spirit 
is not widespread. It is not found in the interior, but only 
among a few leaders who are disparaging the Theology 
taught by the missionaries. The time of great demand for 
missionaries to teach in schools is largely gone by, but 
there never has been a time in the history of our work 
when there was such a call for preaching missionaries, and 
the demand is likely to increase for many years." 

In the midst of the first spring after Dr. Neesima's 
death, when the outlook was disconcerting, he wrote hope- 
fully to Boston: — "The annual meeting of the Doshisha 
Board of Trustees has just been held, and as one of the 
three associate missionary members of the Board, it was 
my privilege to attend. They were three intensely interest- 
ing days. The ten trustees were all present and took hold 
of the business with an intelligent interest which is encour- 
aging. I reached home at midnight, tired, but profoundly 
thankful that God had raised up such men to care for the 
school." 

As time passed on with no appreciable change in the 
religious condition of the churches and the Doshisha, Dr. 
Davis wrote an appeal to the professors and students, 



"REACTION" 221 

sending a copy to each teacher and upper class man. He 
pled for a warmer religious spirit as the only hope of the 
college. " Great as is the need of the school for a closer 
union and fellowship between teachers and students, and 
great as is the need of an endowment, there is one need 
still more fundamental. Without a strengthening of the 
moral tone of the school, a deepening of its spiritual life, 
a warming of its love to God and man, a quickening of 
its faith in Christ and a revivifying of all the spiritual 
powers of its professed Christians, there is little hope for 
its future. . . . The splendid support received in the past, 
was by no means because of Dr. Neesima's name and in- 
fluence, alone; it was because Doshisha trained men of like 
spirit as Dr. Neesima. If the school turns out men who 
have little moral purpose and who find no valuable work 
to do in the world, it will lose the interest of its friends 
both here and abroad. . . . No college can rise higher than 
its faculty, intellectually, morally or spiritually. What I 
have to say applies as much to myself as to anyone. I do 
not say that we are, as a faculty, cold and spiritually inert, 
but the impression is abroad that we are. ... At any rate, 
of what good is a fire unless it warms somebody, unless it 
spreads to something else by contact? It seems to me, and 
I include myself in this, that we must have our hearts power- 
fully revivified with the love of Christ, if we are to kindle the 
school. It is with fear and trembling that I make this 
appeal to ourselves." 

The missionaries were not alone in their concern for the 
religious life of the Doshisha; Principal Kozaki was troub- 
led at the lack of response on the part of the teachers to 
the spiritual needs of the college and had many conferences 
with his foreign faculty members regarding it. The Kyoto 
Station, too, was deeply concerned. Dr. Davis wrote, 
January 2nd, 1892: "Mr. Learned and I have called a 
meeting of our station, tomorrow, to pray over the mat- 



222 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

ter. We had two good meetings on Saturday, the anni- 
versary of Dr. Neesima's death, and Mr. Miyagawa made 
a ringing speech on the need of the school. I am glad he 
is one of the trustees." He wrote long and troubled letters 
concerning the Unitarian views and liberal conduct that 
were gaining ground in and out of the Doshisha, but al- 
ways closed with an expression of that broad Christian 
charity which softened his naturally stern judgments. 

In closing one of these letters, he said: " I suppose we 
should not be so much surprised as I have been. When 
Christian Americans who have a thousand years of Chris- 
tian training behind them have intellectual doubts, usually, 
they have a moral foundation deep enough, so that if their 
heads go wrong their hearts will remain right, until their 
heads have time to right themselves ; but here there is no such 
history behind our Christians, nor a Christian experience 
and environment to hold them, and they are led to do 
things in the name of progress and freedom that grieve and 
astonish us all. I realize, as I never have before, that we 
must be patient and hold on to them and be willing to help 
them for another generation, if necessary, to keep steadily 
along the solid Christian foundations that have been laid." 

In April, 1892, Dr. Davis was requested by the Kyoto 
Station to write the Annual Report of the American Board 
Mission in Japan. Realizing that it was a delicate task he 
asked the station to hear and criticize his report, and, no 
alterations being made, it was published. To correctly 
report the religious life of a school like the Doshisha was 
an extremely difficult undertaking for a missionary, but 
it was handled with his usual candor. The Japanese 
faculty objected to his statements relating to the lowered 
moral tone of the school, its lax discipline and the sense 
of non-responsibility of the teachers for the religious welfare 
of the students, and Dr. Davis was charged with having 
purposely misrepresented facts. This was the beginning 



" REACTION " 223 

of a series of charges now brought against him by the 
liberal wing of the Doshisha and its supporters. Except 
when asked to substantiate his statements by definite facts, 
he made no reply to his opponents. He said: " It is a new 
experience for me to be criticised by the Japanese and it 
is doing me good. I have hitherto been too much praised 
by them. The whole matter of the report is turning out 
for the furtherance of the Gospel and is doing ten times as 
much good as I expected. I never began a school year 
with a braver or happier heart, or one more at rest. One 
hundred and eighty-three new students have passed en- 
trance examinations and we look forward with hope into 
the coming year." 

Of the fourteen distinct charges which were preferred 
against Dr. Davis at this time, the more important were : — 
his alleged neglect of Captain Janes on the occasion of his 
last furlough; the facts in reference to the spiritual condi- 
tion of the Doshisha, included in the Annual Report of 
the Doshisha; his place of leadership in opposing the Union 
Movement; his cowardice in not daring to follow progres- 
sive leaders in the New Theology; the reaction in both 
Doshisha and the Kumi-ai Church due, largely, to the puri- 
tanical spirit and dead theology with which they were 
started, and for which he was held chiefly responsible; and, 
finally, his opposition to the efforts for radical independence 
resulting in the defeat of that movement. In a letter to 
the members of the mission, after explaining the charges 
that were laid at his door and asking their prayers that he 
should not become proud at the importance that they might 
indicate was his, he said: — "While I am conscious of 
many sins and great deficiencies, I feel, in regard to the 
above fourteen charges, absolutely blameless." 

However, the very men who attacked him most reso- 
lutely, who had broken most completely with him in their 
thinking and policies, could not forget the close relation in 



224 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

which Dr. Davis had stood to them. A member of the 
Kumamoto Band and a leader in the independence move- 
ment made the following touching appeal: — "Mr. Davis, 
I cannot but be sorry that you do not go on with us. Why 
should not we, who once met together as father and chil- 
dren in Christ, go on in hope, joy and perfect sympathy ? 
In union question, you left us; in the progress of Theology 
you dare not come. Captain Janes told us to trust you. 
You were three years our comforter after he left us, but 
ever since we could not go on in hearty sympathy. Among 
sorrows of the world, what you and we have been experi- 
encing for many years is, I think, one of the greatest. 
With what comfort should we comfort you. It seems to 
me while all others are striving to separate you from us or 
us from you, there is one thing remaining which can still 
unite you and us in Christ; that is the spirit of self-sacri- 
fice. As we wounded each other in secret suffering it is, 
I think, very hard to understand each other now. How 
unhappy we feel. Still, I hope you will again be a binding 
force in this crisis between missionaries and us, as you were 
fifteen years ago. My teacher, my second father, stand 
with us, strive with us, hold us, become one of us. Board 
and missionaries never leave you alone. I would God that 
you will be ours, and we yours in Christ and his life." 
That he realized this deep-seated bond seems clear. "There 
are a few of these men who are piling everything they can 
on me just now. But the same men who hold apparently 
some personal feeling against me have, I believe, too much 
of love and respect buried in their hearts for these feelings 
to last long. ... I believe that love will conquer." 

Dr. Davis was too sensitive a man to bear, without 
wincing, such intense opposition from such sources; he was 
also too sensible to ignore charges which involved the pros- 
perity of the church and the Doshisha. The thought that 
the reactionary movement might be, in a partial degree, 



"REACTION" 225 

traced to a rebound from his conservative Theology came 
with stunning force to him. To be told that he had driven 
his leading students into extreme views that were influenc- 
ing the whole Japanese church brought sleepless nights and 
agonizing days. He wrote a letter of resignation from his 
chair in the Doshisha, but instead of immediately present- 
ing it he concluded to rely upon the judgment of his col- 
leagues. To them he said: — "Is it wise for me to con- 
tinue to teach Theology? Having reached deep convictions 
I cannot teach contrary to them, but I can stop teaching 
in the Doshisha, and I must stop if these men express the 
general feeling in regard to what I teach. I have realized 
that I was laying foundations in accordance with which, 
under God, the whole spiritual temple here was to be built. 
I have felt crushed with the sense of the responsibility, but 
it may be well for a younger man, better fitted for the 
work, to take my place. I am not wedded to this school 
and can be just as happy in the work of direct evangelism, 
when it is thought I can be spared here." 

The spirit of independence and a desire for entire separa- 
tion from the mission had continued to grow among some 
of the Japanese leaders. They were dissatisfied that the 
mission should stand between themselves and the American 
Christian public. The missionaries were said to be holding 
the position of a " House of Lords " with the Japanese 
as the " House of Commons." Finally, a committee waited 
upon Dr. Davis and presented three definite propositions: 
first, that the mission help to make the Japanese and 
foreign public understand that the Kumi-ai Church was 
independent; second, that the missionaries become members 
of Japanese churches and put themselves under the full 
direction of the Japanese; third, that the Japanese confer- 
ence make the Annual Report to the American Board, ask 
for appropriations and divide the money. 

Dr. Davis urged that no sudden break be made. He 



226 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

pointed to the fact that the Kumi-ai Church, already, had 
entire independence and that moral influence alone was 
exerted by the American Board in its work in Japan; that 
in putting property and power into the hands of the Jap- 
anese his Board had been criticized not only in Japan, but 
by missions in other countries; that it was the first time 
that this had been done in modern missions and that the 
world was watching the result. He assured the committee 
that the mission would gladly cooperate in matters of 
location and work, but that such cooperation should also 
include a joint management of funds appropriated for the 
general work. He believed, moreover, that it would approve 
of their sending their own report to the Board, in addition 
to the mission report. He urged, above all, the necessity 
of heart unity and of acting slowly in a movement with 
whose ultimate success he was in entire sympathy, but that 
he was convinced that speedy action would be fatal. " Let 
us show our love, sympathy and readiness to work under 
their direction, as much as possible," he wrote to a colleague. 
11 Do not be moved by the transient moods of a few of 
these leaders, but wait until the body of Christians moves 
in a given direction and stays of the same mind twelve 
consecutive months. We need to teach them stability and 
perseverance by not being too easily moved ourselves. 
. . . The feeling of independence is a good sign, though 
it may be carried too fast and too far. Still, we must rec- 
ognize the fact, and we ought to be glad to recognize it, 
that, henceforth, we must decrease and that they must 
increase." 

The rank and file of the Japanese pastors took issue with 
the radical leaders upon the independence question. Dr. 
Davis was in receipt of letters from Kumi-ai men in differ- 
ent parts of the country, during 1893 and 1894, which 
cheered him and strengthened his conviction that the work 
was passing through a heavy squall and would eventually 



"REACTION" 227 

right itself. One pastor said: "Though I think indepen- 
dence itself is a good thing, I have no sympathy with the 
movement for independence which is carried on by a few 
Kumi-ai ministers, and which, in my opinion, is the prod- 
uct of a narrow, anti-foreign spirit. Do not be dis- 
couraged because a few ministers express hostility. There 
are among us thoughtful men who understand the position 
of you missionaries and who have a friendly feeling toward 
you. There was a time when our people wished to kill 
missionaries, and even at such a time you never said, 
1 Then we will go home.' A few Kumamoto men are not 
the representatives of the Kumi-ai churches. You must 
not take the matter too seriously. The time has not yet 
come when we break our relation with the American 
Churches." 

No one rejoiced more heartily than Dr. Davis over the 
practical outgrowths of this independence agitation which 
became rapidly manifest within the Church. In 1895, the 
Kumi-ai churches decided to rely upon themselves for the 
future support of their Missionary Society, which, up to 
this time, had received large subsidies from the American 
Board. The result has been the substantial development 
of the work of the society, in which the missionaries have 
steadily cooperated upon the invitation of the Japanese. 
The growth of independent churches was also powerfully 
stimulated during these years, and though some were led 
to decline outside aid prematurely, it is clear that the inde- 
pendence movement, difficult as it was to confine within 
normal bounds, marked an epoch in the history of Chris- 
tianity in Japan which has opened up new springs of power 
and blessing to the church. 

As a relief to the strain of these anxious months his evan- 
gelistic tours, during week ends, and on longer occasions, 
were very effective. Here, immersed in the work upon 
which his heart was centered, he found peace of spirit and 



228 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

a supreme satisfaction. The eagerness of the rural Chris- 
tians for spiritual food and their earnest cooperation in his 
tours, the useful work in which he found the Doshisha 
graduates very generally engaged and the cordial greetings 
extended to him, all warmed his heart. The open-minded- 
ness of the people and the vast country areas still unevan- 
gelized, deeply impressed him. It is probable that without 
this outlet for the expression of his evangelistic zeal and 
the enlarged horizon which these tours provided, he could 
hardly have had the courage to hold on. Contact with a 
wide circle of believers, together with concrete evidence of 
the power of the old Gospel to save men, offset the dis- 
couragement and sense of defeat which came to him in the 
vortex of discussion and criticism which surrounded him in 
Kyoto. 

Another problem of this period was a growing sentiment 
in the mission and among the home constituency that the 
time had come to reduce the mission work and to gradually 
withdraw from Japan. The Japanese Church had at- 
tained such strength and aggressiveness that it was believed 
that the gradual reduction of missionary forces would prove 
a stimulus to the indigenous spread of Christianity. Such 
was the opposition of many leaders to missionaries and the 
difficulty of cooperation, that a further increase of foreign 
workers seemed likely to accentuate the existing irritation 
and to further retard the work. 

He placed himself with great earnestness against this 
policy, urging that the independence movement was abor- 
tive, that the reaction against foreign cooperation was tem- 
porary, that Japan was not only far from being redeemed, 
but that to withdraw at that time was to leave the devel- 
opment of the field in the hands of men who had proved 
their unfitness to assume control. He wrote, September 
30th, 1893: "I have seen another broadside in the ' Con- 
gregationalism' from Japan, to the effect that the time is 



" REACTION " 229 

drawing near when the work of the Board must be closed 
out here. I deprecate such statements; they are doing 
incalculable harm. . . . These present waves will soon sub- 
side 11 It is a mistake to give the impression to the 
churches that are behind us that the work of the American 
Board is nearly done here. They will awake later to the 
fact that the forty millions of Japan are hardly touched by 
Christianity, that it will take from twenty to fifty years 
yet, more likely the longer term, if the foreign and Japa- 
nese forces cordially co-operate, to fully evangelise these 
millions. The few leaders among the Japanese and in our 
mission who are thinking of leaving the infant church to 
carry the work alone do not grasp the greatness of the 
task, nor the infinite peril which hangs over individual 
souls. ... It may take more consecration to work in 
Japan, now, than to go to Africa. It may be that one 
must be willing to become a servant to a few of the lead- 
ers and sometimes have his feelings rudely trampled on, 
but any one with a full knowledge of the situation and a 
burning desire to tell the story, and with consecration 
enough to take a humble place, learn the language and be- 
gin direct work, will find a hearty welcome and an open 
door through a lifetime. Without a far greater miracle 
than the world has yet seen in missions, this work is not 
going to be accomplished in one generation. I believe that 
within a few years the Japanese will be calling as loudly as 
ever for more missionaries. The young church here needs 
to be kept steady, the ' bruised reed not broken and the 
smoking flax not quenched,' till she gains the victory over 
all these powerful influences that have so seriously inter- 
fered with her life and growth." 

However keenly he felt the loss to the Kingdom which 
the reaction was bringing in Japan, his natural optimism 
and wide sweep of vision found expression in even his 
gloomiest pictures of the situation. Standing out in bold 



230 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

contrast, yet woven inextricably, like the warp and woof 
of a garment, were his sensitiveness, which could not see 
without anxiety and keen suffering the loss of a single be- 
liever, and his prophetic vision and triumphant faith that 
invariably rallied to support him in the face of every crisis. 
From an article in the " Advance," of December, 1893: 
" Though there has been much harm wrought, we believe 
that the grand outcome of the whole will be good and for 
the success of the Kingdom of God. In spite of these 
vicissitudes we may still thank God that the young Church 
of Christ has met political excitement, intense nationalistic 
feeling and insidious rationalism without either shipwreck 
or great disaster. I believe that the crisis in all these move- 
ments, political, nationalistic and rationalistic, has been 
passed. There is a growing conviction that Christianity, 
alone, can furnish the moral, steadying influence needed to 
make representative government a success. There is a 
belief in the hearts of pastors and church members that 
they need a spiritual Christianity which only a divine and 
living Christ can give." 

As the year of 1893 wore away, and the situation in 
the Doshisha showed signs of an increased tension, the 
difficulty of avoiding a complete break with the school 
became more and more apparent to the American Board 
Mission. On November 5th, Dr. Davis wrote to the Board, 
advising that any further endowment funds should be kept 
in America until the future of the school was more assured: 
" The end is not yet, either of our trials nor of the work 
of this mission/' 

Dr. Davis left Japan upon his third furlough, April 30th, 
1894. Tired from the long strain under which he had been 
working, he had again and again considered resigning from 
the Doshisha. Each time, however, he had reconsidered 
the matter and determined to await a more rested condi- 
tion before attempting to decide such an important ques- 



11 REACTION" 231 

tion. Before leaving the country, he addressed a letter to 
the Faculty and Trustees asking if they wished him to 
continue teaching upon his return to Japan. He considered 
that since he had never been called to the Faculty of the 
Doshisha by a Board of Trustees, but had grown up with 
the school, and since his views differed so fundamentally 
from those of its leaders, that it was only fair to give them 
a chance to say whether they wished him to continue in 
the chair of Theology. Upon leaving Japan, he packed 
his household goods in such a way that they could be 
shipped to America, in case he should not return. He also 
wrote to Dr. Roy, of the American Home Missionary 
Society, putting his case before him and asking that he be 
on the lookout for a field of work in the South for him in 
the near future. 

The home journey was brightened by a visit with friends 
in Cheyenne, Wyoming, where Dr. Davis spoke at the 
twenty-fifth anniversary of the founding of his old church. 
Of the reunion with the three children in Oberlin, he wrote: 
— " We reached Oberlin, where our three children were so 
anxiously awaiting our coming, at 7.45 P.M. It was 
nearly nine years since I had seen them. The girls looked 
natural, but my son had grown out of all recognition. I 
had left him a little boy of eleven; I found him, a man, 
four inches taller than myself, and it was six months before 
it seemed as if he belonged to me." 

After a restful summer with his family at Lake George, 
N. Y., he attended the annual meeting of the American 
Board, visited his birthplace in Groton, N. Y., and settled 
for the winter in Oberlin, Ohio. Here he revised his lec- 
tures on Natural Theology, the Evidences of Christianity 
and Systematic Theology, and wrote many articles for the 
religious press. 

February, 1895, found him in Boston, conferring with 
the Prudential Committee of the American Board, Mr, 



232 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

Harris, the princely benefactor of the Doshisha, and other 
friends of the school, trying to reassure them regarding its 
future. Mr. Harris told him that he knew of more than a 
million dollars that had been written into wills for the 
Doshisha, which were now being taken out because of its 
changed spirit. These repeated conferences revealed the 
anxiety with which the developments in Japan were re- 
garded. Dr. Davis could not see the situation drifting into 
an open break without one more effort at reconciliation. 
He wrote to the Doshisha Trustees, explaining why the 
American Board was troubled and pointing out the inevi- 
table consequences of the present policy of the Doshisha. 

His furlough closed with two months of speaking through- 
out Ohio, followed by a Commencement address at Beloit 
and reunions with his college class and with his comrades 
of the Fifty-second Illinois, at Elgin. 

As the time drew near for his return, Dr. Davis ceased 
to question whether he was needed in Japan, feeling sure 
that he could be happy and busy in evangelistic work, 
should the Doshisha be closed to him. " I am pretty cer- 
tain that if we will be but patient and hold on to God, 
the mud will speedily settle to the bottom, and the waters 
will clear. As to my own return to the work, in some 
capacity, I shall not ask any one's permission. My duty 
is in Japan, and if the Board should decide that they could 
not send me, and if the leaders in the Kumi-ai churches 
should express an opinion that I had better not come, I 
should still feel called to go, if any other board would sup- 
port me. It is hard to prophesy about the immediate 
future, but God's Truth, Christ's divinity and His King- 
dom can never be moved, although some men may be 
moved away from them." 

Upon the resignation of several of the leading teachers 
and officers of the school, which occurred just prior to his 
return to Japan, he said: — ''This open break is made on 



" REACTION " 233 

the square issue of holding the Doshisha loyal to Christ and 
to the purpose for which it was founded. I feel encour- 
aged. We must support President Kozaki in the stand he 
has taken. It is no time to withdraw. It would be as 
unwise, as I see it, as it would have been had the North, 
in 1861, withdrawn from Washington and given up the 
Union after the defeat of Bull Run. No, although many 
of our trusted leaders who have been educated in Doshisha, 
our West Point, turn against the Truth and against us, 
we must not give up, but rather call for ' 300,000 more,' 
and proceed to strengthen the things that remain." 

Even as late as August, 1895, Dr. Davis was unwilling 
to consider the situation hopeless. He believed in the 
school and in the integrity of its Trustees and found it hard 
to acknowledge that complete disaster was ahead. He 
wrote to Boston, — "I do not yet believe that the Dosh- 
isha Trustees are going to cut loose from us nor from vital 
Christianity. It seems to me better to hold on quietly, and 
trust to time to cool some of them and to the Spirit of 
the Lord to open their hearts and reveal things in a proper 
light and allow them to return to sounder views." 

Dr. Davis returned to Japan in September, 1895, in com- 
pany with a deputation from the American Board, which 
had been appointed to study the problems of its work in 
Japan. After two months of conference with prominent 
Japanese Christians, missionaries of different societies and 
Japanese officials, they reported regarding Doshisha a 
marked concurrence in the opinion that a change had 
taken place in the spirit of the institution. It was quite 
generally affirmed that the Christian character and spiri- 
tual tone of the University were far less pronounced than 
formerly. 

The following extract from the report of the deputation 
relating to a conference with the Trustees over the inter- 
pretation of the clause in the Constitution making Christian- 



234 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

ity the foundation of the moral education of the Doshisha, 
is of interest. " We asked if they would affirm that the 
Doshisha stood for the personality of God, the divinity of 
Christ, and the future life. They declared that they could 
not. While as individuals they could affirm these beliefs, 
as Trustees they could not, since differences existed among 
Christians on these points, and they must not ally them- 
selves with any party. When asked if they would accept 
the creed of the Kumi-ai churches in definition of the 
sense in which they used the word Christian, they declined, 
saying that they would thus identify themselves with a 
single denomination. When urged to make some state- 
ment, however brief, of what they meant by Christianity, 
since the word did not in their minds involve the above 
named beliefs, they declined. They said it was not neces- 
sary; that having declared their purpose to maintain a 
Christian institution, they should be trusted to do so; that 
to affirm the above named beliefs would narrow the basis 
of the university, would cause the resignation of professors 
whose services they did not wish to lose, and would repel 
students who were now encouraged to enter the school by 
its spirit of free inquiry. It was carefully explained to the 
Trustees that the American churches which contributed to 
the treasury of the Board, while not making a test of any 
creed, could hardly hold to be Christian those persons or 
institutions which refused to declare belief in a personal 
God, the divinity of Christ and the immortality of the soul. 
The reply was that the whole subject had been a matter 
of thought with them; that theological opinion in Japan 
was in a formative state and beliefs were unsettled; that 
for this reason and because it would be disastrous to act 
now, under appearance of compulsion, they could make no 
statement whatever, except that they would maintain a 
Christian university." 
The deputation recommended to the Board that money 



"REACTION" 235 

contributed for Christian education in Japan could not 
rightly be used indefinitely by the Doshisha, but that for 
the time being the American teachers be continued, that 
cooperation in the Theological Department remain as be- 
fore and that the annual Board subsidy be gradually with- 
drawn, ceasing entirely within four years. 

In the report of the Deputation relating to the Doshisha, 
the Trustees believed that the influence of the mission could 
be traced. They could not admit that the real spirit of the 
Doshisha had changed, nor consent to make the formal 
declaration of their faith which was insisted upon by the 
Deputation (as a means of relieving the uncertainty exist- 
ing in the minds of American supporters of the school re- 
garding its essential Christian purpose). It was natural 
that the coming of a foreign committee to examine into 
the alleged mismanagement of the Doshisha should be 
resented by the Japanese, and the difficulties before such a 
deputation in understanding the Japanese point of view 
during their brief stay in the country were obvious. The 
representatives of the American Board sailed for home 
without reaching an understanding with the Trustees and 
with the conviction heightened on both sides of the hope- 
lessness of agreement, between the Doshisha and its foreign 
constituency. 

The Kumi-ai churches were thoroughly aroused by the 
report of the deputation and appointed a committee to 
investigate and locate the blame for the condition of affairs. 
From the Japanese standpoint, the honor, not only of the 
Doshisha and the Kumi-ai body, but of the nation, was at 
stake; the blame settled naturally upon the missionaries, 
who, it was reported, had failed to correctly interpret the 
situation to the American Board, and there the matter 
rested for the time being, but the breach had been mea- 
surably widened and deepened. 

The action of the government of the previous year in 



236 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

exempting the students of government schools from the 
maximum conscription laws and in granting other privileges 
had been bringing powerful pressure to bear upon the Trus- 
tees of the Doshisha. Government schools prescribed the 
teaching of religion as a defined policy, and the question 
of regular Biblical teaching versus government privilege for 
the Doshisha was coming to the front. On April 6th, 1896, 
the faculty of the Doshisha voted to drop the Bible from 
the curriculum of the Academy. A leading member of the 
faculty, in supporting this action, said that the Bible was 
not Christianity, nor did it make Christianity, but that 
Christianity made the Bible, and now, when so many 
doubts were raised about the Bible, he believed it would 
be better to drop it and return to primitive Christianity 
and get the Truth by direct inner consciousness, through 
the aid of the Holy Spirit. 

Succeeding events moved rapidly. Within a week of the 
faculty meeting whose decision was to have such momen- 
tous results the Trustees took formal action in deciding to 
completely separate the school from the American Board 
the following December, in so far as money and teachers 
were concerned. The causes of this decision were the hope 
to gain in enrollment, by securing equal privileges with 
government schools; the well-grounded fear lest without 
such privileges the Doshisha would be ruined; the desire 
to no longer be known as a mission school, and the belief 
that the new role would open up considerable sources of 
Japanese support. Finally, the Trustees believed that this 
step would meet the approval of liberal-minded friends in 
America who would sympathize with the stand they were 
taking and secure funds for the maintenance of the school. 

It was now an open question in the missionary faculty 
whether its members should not resign at once, even in 
the midst of the term. Dr. Davis counselled deliberate 
action, urging that it would be fair neither to the school 



"REACTION" 237 

nor to the Board to act before hearing from Boston, and 
before the mission could take united action in the matter. 
At its annual meeting in July the American Board Mission 
took formal action in notifying the Trustees of the with- 
drawal of its members from the faculty of the Doshisha. 

In his reply to a missionary of another Board working in 
Japan, who asked him to summarize the mistakes of the 
policy which had led to this disaster, after frankly admit- 
ting certain mistakes, he said: "It is easy for men who 
have come later to Japan, and who stand and look on, to 
criticise, and to think they could have done a great deal 
better. Perhaps they would have done so. Among all the 
trials of my life, and I have had a good many, the greatest 
is to be willing to have my life work judged a failure by 
the Christian, the missionary world. I do not believe that 
God counts it thus. I became willing, however, two years 
ago, as the school went down, to become nothing in the 
eyes of men. It has been a blessed experience, which has 
made me realize more than ever before the preciousness of 
the fact that there is One who knows; knows my every 
thought and purpose, the tears and prayers and heartaches 
all these twenty-five years. That One is mine, and He is 
with me, and He is my judge, and not men, and so I rest." 

His suffering during these months was acute. He felt 
that the work of twenty-five years had been wrecked; 
that the hundreds of letters which he had written, pleading 
for funds and for confidence in the Doshisha, had led the 
American Board and the Congregational constituency into 
the mistake of a great illusion. Yet even in the midst of 
anxiety the deepest he had experienced, his faith and indom- 
itable courage did not fail him. He still believed that God 
would lead a way out. He believed that he was to have a 
part in finding that difficult path and that his work was not 
yet done. He uttered the prophetic words: — "I see 
nothing for it here, so far as our mission is concerned, but 



238 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

for the ' Old Guard ' to close up as they did around Napo- 
leon at Waterloo, and fight till we die. It will not be a 
Waterloo, however. We shall gain the victory. It may 
be that with some of us it will be as with Mr. Harris, who 
said, ' We shall see it, but not here; we shall behold it, but 
from above'; but we shall surely see it, and I expect to see 
a good deal of it before I am through here." 



Chapter XVI 
THE STRUGGLE FOR THE DOSHISHA 

UPON his return to Kyoto, Dr. Davis was given a 
hearty welcome by the Japanese pastors and by 
many teachers in the Doshisha. He resumed his 
teaching in the Theological Department, but a light sched- 
ule enabled him to devote much of his time to preaching 
and evangelistic touring. He was asked to preach twice at 
the Doshisha, and although the school was even then upon 
the eve of separation from the mission, he was invited to 
deliver the address on the occasion of its Twentieth Anni- 
versary. It was not an easy task. He seized the occasion 
to earnestly state that God was the founder of the Dosh- 
isha, that it had been sustained for twenty years by prayer, 
and that its only hope for future prosperity was in keeping 
it true to its original foundation as an earnest Christian 
school. Six months later, in June, 1886, with the other 
missionary teachers, he ceased his work in the Doshisha, 
the Trustees severing at the same time all connection with 
the American Board Mission. 

A few months before he had declined to accept the posi- 
tion of honorary trustee, urged upon him by the Board of 
Directors of the Doshisha, who were loath to see the 
foreign element of the school becoming alienated. He con- 
sidered it an anomaly to accept such an honor at the hands 
of many of the same men who had brought against him 
the unsubstantiated charges of the previous year. His 
reasons for leaving the Doshisha are stated in a letter to 
the President: " A year ago I met with the committee of 
the Science School, and advised a course of action which 
Mr. Harris desired. That advice was not taken. In the 

239 



240 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

meantime, Mr. Harris passed away. Last Fall I sent a 
letter to the Trustees giving extracts of Mr. Harris' last 
letters, showing how grieved he was that the Doshisha did 
not follow his advice. I was put upon the committee for 
the Science School at Mr. Harris' request. Under these 
circumstances, and since the Doshisha has severed connec- 
tions with the American Board, it is not best for me to 
work with the committee. I shall be glad of any success 
that the Doshisha may gain, but I cannot cooperate with 
it in its regular work in any department. If ever I am 
desired to preach or teach a Bible class or lecture on 
spiritual subjects, I shall be glad to do so and I shall be 
glad to help any students spiritually in any way I can. . . . 
I do not believe that God's blessing will rest upon the 
Doshisha until the majority of its Board of Trustees are 
earnest Christian men and until it has similar men for its 
President, the heads of its departments and a majority of 
the teachers. There is only one thing in which the Dosh- 
isha can successfully compete with government schools, and 
that is in earnest Christian influence. If that can be kept 
pure and strong, those who realize the moral deficiency of 
government education will send their sons to Doshisha. 
That reputation is largely lost. It is a far greater loss 
than endowments and buildings. You will not agree with 
me, but it is due to you, to the school, to Mr. Neesima, to 
Mr. Harris and to the thousands in America and in Japan 
who are mourning over the present condition of the Dosh- 
isha, that I frankly tell you these things. I write in the 
memory of the love and service for Christ which have 
united us in the past, a love which is undiminished, and in 
the hope that God will lead us all into his light and 
truth." 

In the fall of 1896, the Kyoto Station opened a small 
training class for theological students under the care of 
Messrs. Learned and Curtis. This was soon taken over by 



THE STRUGGLE FOR THE DOSHISHA 241 

the mission and the following autumn a Mission Theo- 
logical School was formed, of which Dr. Davis became 
dean. A small group of students was gathered, and for 
over two years the school was carried on independently of 
the Doshisha. The school presented many problems. 
Theology was at a discount, Christianity at a low ebb and, 
moreover, the school started and managed by foreigners 
was not popular. The promising students attracted under 
these conditions were few, and among those gathered from 
distant parts of the empire were cases of unworthy men 
seeking the loaves. But the teaching with hands un- 
shackled, and the training of the few students for service 
in a positive Christian environment was a deep satisfaction. 

The early autumn brought severe illness to the Davis 
family. Two of the children were ill for many weeks with 
typhoid fever in the summer camp on Hieizan. Helen's 
case was so unusually severe and protracted that physicians 
repeatedly despaired of saving her life during the nine 
weeks in which she was wasted by the fever. The father 
and mother worked with tireless energy to check the exces- 
sive temperature. Men were employed night and day to 
carry cold water from a distant spring which was circu- 
lated in coiled tubes about the head of the little patient. 
Dr. Davis from first to last took charge of the case, and 
scarcely leaving the bedside for two months, literally saved 
the life of the little daughter who had accompanied him 
back to Japan, and to whom his heart was always drawn 
with especially tender ties. 

In January, 1898, the Trustees of the Doshisha applied 
to the Department of Education for the privileges enjoyed 
by government schools, but were refused upon the ground 
that the Doshisha was an avowedly religious institution 
and, as such, was not entitled to these privileges. On the 
23rd of February, the Trustees, in quarterly session at 
Tokyo, voted to strike out the sixth article of the Consti- 



242 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

tution, which stated that the first five articles were un- 
changeable. 1 They then rescinded Article Two, which pro- 
vided that the clause stating Christianity to be the moral 
foundation of the school applied to all departments of the 
institution. This made possible the exclusion of Biblical 
instruction and all religious exercise in the Academy, the 
College, the School of Law and Economics and the Scien- 
tific School, though the third article still applied to the 
Theological Department which had now practically ceased 
to exist. In this way the Doshisha would secure full 
recognition by the Department of Education with the 
privileges of exemption from military service, etc. 

In defence of this action it should be stated that it was 
an expression of the extreme nationalistic spirit and liberal 
religious views prevailing at the time. Two trustees regis- 
tered their protest against the Board's decision by tendering 
their resignations. Five of the Board were new members 
and others had lost vital interest in the affairs of the Dosh- 
isha. Loyalty to their President who, according to Japa- 
nese custom, is held responsible for corporate action, required 
them to either uphold him or resign. The only alternative 
was to force him to resign. They were not prepared to 
follow either of these latter courses. In upholding their 
conduct it was pointed out that the rights of the large 
non-Christian Japanese donors took precedence of those of 
foreign friends; that the views of missionaries should no 
longer control, and it was time to decide whether the 

1 " Doshisha Constitution. Chapter One: 

FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES 

" 1. This Company is established to promote moral and intellectual education in 
close union. 

" 2. The name of the Company is ' The Doshisha.' All schools of the Company 
must have ' Doshisha ' as a part of their name, and this Constitution applies to them 
all. 

" 3. Christianity is the foundation of the moral education promoted by this Company. 

" 4. This Company is located in Kyoto. 

" 5. The principal of the permanent funds of the Company is not to be used under 
any circumstances. 

" 6. The above five articles are unchangeable." 



THE STRUGGLE FOR THE DOSHISHA 243 

Doshisha was a Japanese or a foreign institution; that a 
school must be adapted to changing conditions; that though 
the Christian sign was taken down the Christian spirit re- 
mained, and that under the old constitution the school would 
have been reduced to a negligible quantity. Voluntary- 
Sunday services and Bible classes remained for those who 
wished to attend and the real Christian character of the 
school was not changed. 

This news, which shocked Christian friends on both sides 
of the Pacific and which aroused earnest protests from even 
the secular press and public in Japan, came to Dr. Davis as 
a distinct relief. For some time he had considered this 
action of the Board inevitable and a logical climax to the 
course of events, and so was in a measure prepared for it. 
A heavy burden was lifted from his heart, now that the 
mists which for years had been obscuring the whole Dosh- 
isha situation had blown away and a clean-cut issue stood 
revealed. The way was open so that a clear statement of 
facts about the Doshisha could get a hearing. Since he had 
been so largely responsible for starting the school, and 
had been for more than twenty years advising the Board 
and American friends to put money into it as a missionary 
investment, he felt that it was his duty to throw his whole 
soul into the effort to bring the Doshisha back to its orig- 
inal foundation. " I resolved to risk everything by open 
and bold action in a struggle to save the school. I could 
do no less if I knew it was to be the last thing I ever did." 

During the week following the action of the Doshisha 
Trustees, he wrote an article of twenty-five hundred words, 
entitled " The recent coup de grace of the Doshisha," in 
which he gave a concise statement of the facts attending 
the founding of the school, together with a summary of its 
history and development. He pointed out that the thou- 
sands of dollars given by friends in America were contrib- 
uted solely on the basis of the Christian foundation of the 



244 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

Doshisha, which had now been removed through the action 
of the Trustees. In closing he said, " If a Board of Trus- 
tees, all of whom are professing Christians and many of 
whom are men in high positions, can deliberately sweep 
away a sacred trust which was declared in the Constitution 
to be unalterable, what foundations of honor and trust are 
there among the Japanese people? This will be the swift, 
inevitable question of all enlightened nations. It is a fatal 
stab at the Doshisha and at the fair reputation of my 
adopted country." 

He took the article for verification of facts to Dr. 
Learned, and, then, without seeking the advice of anyone 
as to the wisdom of the course he was about to take, sent 
it to the "Japan Mail" for publication, at the same time 
ordering a thousand copies printed as an open letter. These 
he sent to all the members of his mission, to a majority of 
the missionaries in Japan, to nearly all the pastors of the 
Kumi-ai body and to many representatives of other 
churches. A few days later he published the same article 
in the " Kirisutokyo Shimbun," the weekly paper of the 
Kumi-ai churches, one thousand special copies of which 
were circulated among the Japanese. March 20th, he wrote 
a second article for the " Japan Mail," giving additional 
facts and information regarding the history of the Dosh- 
isha case. This was sent in large numbers to pastors and 
others in the United States and in Japan, including many 
prominent government officials and laymen interested in 
the Doshisha. 

Dr. Davis attended the annual conference of the Kumi-ai 
churches in Tokyo on April 7th, and was given a warm 
greeting by a large majority of the delegates. Two days 
later, at the Twentieth Anniversary of the Japanese Home 
Missionary Society, he was asked to close the final session 
with the Benediction. No other foreigner had been given a 
part in these exercises, and it was evident that the stand 



THE STRUGGLE FOR THE DOSHISHA 245 

he was taking was supported by a majority of his Japanese 
brethren. The conference sessions were full of suppressed 
feeling, and resolutions were passed by a large majority 
severely condemning the action of the Trustees in changing 
the Constitution of the Doshisha and admonishing them to 
restore it. Dr. Davis wrote to Boston: — " The tide of 
public protest is rising higher and higher. Local con- 
ferences of our churches and the former graduates and 
students of the Doshisha are protesting. Mass meetings of 
Christians in Tokyo and Kyoto, without regard to denomi- 
nation, unite in protesting. The leading Christian mer- 
chants of Tokyo have sent their protest. The " Kirisu- 
tokyo Shimbun " has been filled with opposition to this 
action for four weeks in succession. The secular press, 
also, is entering most vigorous protest. One leading paper 
says the Trustees have completely betrayed their trusts 
Another says they have ruined the school. Others call on 
them to return the money to the donors. . . . There is a 
tremendous storm brewing among the alumni. They are all 
writing to me for facts and ammunition. Letters of thanks 
are coming from every direction. I am urging them to 
secure reorganization of the Board of Trustees, selecting 
earnest Christian men, elected for a limited term of years 
by a responsible body, say, one half by the Kumi-ai body 
and one half by the Evangelical Alliance of Japan. We may 
not succeed at once in this, but God can and will use this 
to his glory here. This mighty movement among the 
churches will do much to bring them back to a definite de- 
clared evangelical faith, and so we thank God and take 
courage for the cloud, though very dark, has a silver lining 
and will eventually pass away." 

On April 28th he sent to Boston his convictions regard- 
ing the necessity of an appeal to the courts for a settle- 
ment of the Doshisha problem. "It seems to me that 
either the Board, or some one acting for Mr. Harris, ought 



246 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

to put this into the Japanese courts, at once. Two of the 
best lawyers in this part of Japan are ready to push it. It 
seems to us here that we owe it to you, to Mr. Harris and 
to the general interests involved, to take this course. I 
feel that we ought to do this, even if we knew we would 
lose, because then the public would see that we had done 
all that we could to secure justice, but I do not believe 
that the case would be lost in a Japanese court. . . . The 
other missions feel that this is a case which vitally affects 
their work and the whole cause of Christ. We are experiencing 
rather severe criticism from some of them, but when all the 
facts are known they will modify or suspend their judgments." 

General N. W. Mclvor, an American lawyer of excep- 
tional ability, was recommended to the American Board to 
handle the Doshisha case. Mr. Mclvor had served as 
Consul-General for four years in Yokohama, and was being 
considered by the United States as a commissioner to re- 
organize the new Hawaiian government, a consideration 
calculated to largely enhance his influence in the prosecution 
of a legal case in the Japanese courts. 

At a regular meeting of the Doshisha Alumni Association, 
the President of the school made a statement of the de- 
mands of the American Board. He said that they would 
not restore the Constitution, that they were making a new 
one in accordance with the new Code of Civil Law, which 
when filed would be unchangeable. He intimated that the 
Trustees would not resign or return the money. When 
resolutions approving the course of the Trustees were pro- 
posed fifteen members left the hall, including the chairman. 
The remainder then passed resolutions to the effect that 
the recent change in the Doshisha was inevitable in order 
to meet the changed spirit of the age in Japan; that while 
the decision was good, the procedure was reprehensible, be- 
cause the Trustees did not consult the alumni, and that 
the spirit of the Doshisha was unchanged and remained as 



THE STRUGGLE FOR THE DOSHISHA 247 

Christian as ever. " Several Japanese tell me that their 
evident policy is to delay definite answer to the Board as 
long as possible, get the new Constitution on record and 
hope for a gradual change in public sentiment. You will 
find it very tedious dealing with this case from America 
and should send Mr. Mclvor as soon as possible to handle 
matters at first hand." 

In July, Dr. Barton wrote to Dr. Davis: — "I am glad 
you wrote that article for the ' Japan Mail.' I have sent 
a copy to the ' Independent,' and have used the slips here 
very satisfactorily. It is not time to keep silent. I think 
you have reached a place in mission work where you need 
to hold out and hold on, but where the necessity for hold- 
ing in, is considerably passed. We all profoundly appreci- 
ate the noble work you are doing, and I am sure that if 
the work of the last few months was the only work which 
you have ever done in Japan, it would be a full justifica- 
tion for your life service. I hear from every side only 
strong expressions of commendation. I, at once, put 
copies of your documents of May 28th and 29th into Gen- 
eral Mclvor's hands. It will interest you to know that our 
committee is a unit in the matter of reconstruction. We 
have no thought of compromise or of giving up now. Do 
care for yourself and not overwork, for we need you now 
and we shall need you when the reorganization comes. It 
will require steady hands and level heads for sometime yet. 
May the Lord give you strength and a vocabulary to express 
everything needful in these times of trial." 

At the Annual Meeting of the American Board Mission, 
Drs. Albrecht, Davis and Gordon were appointed a Com- 
mittee on the Doshisha Question. They were empowered 
to present to the Trustees the grounds of mission dissatis- 
faction with the administration of the institution, and with 
the Japanese plan of cooperation, to make a positive state- 
ment of the conditions on which future cooperation was 



248 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

possible, and to take such other steps in the matter as 
should seem wise. The American Board gave General 
Mclvor and Drs. Davis and Learned the power of attorney 
in the Doshisha case, with instructions to appeal to the 
courts, if necessary. The authority to act was given to 
any two of the three men. 

After being met by Dr. Davis in Yokohama on the 20th 
of September, General Mclvor proceeded to an interview 
in Tokyo with Premier Count Okuma, who promised to use 
his influence to secure a fair adjustment of the American 
Board's claims. This was followed by a conference with 
members of the Board of Trustees, in which Drs. Gordon, 
Learned, Davis and General Mclvor took part. After a 
clear presentation of the case of the American Board by 
General Mclvor, Dr. Learned made a strong statement, 
emphasizing the fact that it would now take a much 
stronger Constitution than the old one to restore confi- 
dence in the school. They were told that if the representa- 
tives of the mission insisted upon taking legal measures in 
the Doshisha case, their influence and reputation as mis- 
sionaries in Japan would be gone. Dr. Davis replied: 
" This case is broader and more important than the reputa- 
tion of any one, or any number of missionaries, and even if 
we knew that it would result in our having to leave Japan, 
we would have to make an effort to have the wrong 
righted." This was the first of a long series of conferences 
in which little headway was made, since the Trustees tried 
to justify their action and the missionaries, with their legal 
adviser, urged the demands of the American Board. At 
length, on the 7th of November, the final answer of the 
Trustees was given, in which they declined to restore the 
original constitution of the Doshisha and stated that a new 
constitution had been completed. 1 

*From the vantage point of sixteen years, we may, while not exonerating the per- 
version of funds held in trust for Christian education, at least, find more explicable 
the position of the Doshisha Trustees. Here were two groups of Christian men, each 



THE STRUGGLE FOR THE DOSHISHA 249 

There now seemed no other course than to institute legal 
proceedings. Dr. Learned felt strongly that, as a matter of 
conscience, he could take no part in forcing a legal issue 
with the Japanese, and returned to his duties as Treasurer 
of the Mission and teacher in the Theological School in 
Kyoto. Dr. Gordon, however, consented to remain to 
help in the preparation of the case and to give valuable 
counsel and moral support. 

October 2nd, Dr. Davis wrote to Boston: — "We are to 
meet the Trustees, on the Fourth, to examine the draft of 
this new constitution. I am not very hopeful. With God 
all things are possible. My hope is in Him." " October 8th, 
There has been no change in the general situation since 
the Trustees declined to include a clear statement in the 
Constitution that Christianity is the basis of moral educa- 
tion in all departments of the Doshisha. We stand there, 
and having done all, expect to stand there, even if it results 
in going into the courts. Count Okuma had a long, un- 
official interview with U. S. Minister Buck and asked him 
to see Gen'l Mclvor and try to avert a lawsuit." 

Minister Buck held a conference with General Mclvor 
(on the tenth), in which he stated that he was in thorough 
agreement with the position of the American Board and 
urged him on no account to yield. He assured him that he 
would do anything in his power to further a right settle- 
ment of the question and asked for a careful statement of 
the case, which he could present to Count Okuma in per- 
son. Dr. Davis spent several days in gathering the mate- 
actuated by high motives of honor, attempting to conduct the Doshisha according 
to their convictions of the right. Representing two irreconcilable interpretations of 
what constitutes a Christian school, a conflict was inevitable. All honor to the party 
which having upheld its position to the last, yielded in such a way as to enable the 
school to continue with the least possible embarrassment, under the regime of the men 
to whom they surrendered. When we recall that the founders of the Doshisha had 
opened the school under compulsion of excluding formal Biblical teaching, and as we 
consider that other mission schools have removed instruction in the Bible and in 
religion from the class rooms of their middle schools in order to retain Government 
recognition, with the verdict that vital Christian influence has not been weakened by 
this course, we find that we must exercise a more charitable judgment in this whole 
matter than was possible under the anxieties and deep feeling of the hour. 






250 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

rial which Went into this document. Later he wrote: "The 
whole matter is in a most interesting stage. The United 
States Minister and the Prime Minister of Japan are both 
actively interested, the Trustees are very uneasy and we 
hold an impregnable position, standing for a vital principle. 
The time in which the new constitution must be filed with 
the government expires in two days, and Col. Buck has 
promised to officially receive and forward to the Japanese 
Government our protest against the acceptance of any con- 
stitution which we have not approved. This would put 
the matter into the Executive Department and make it a 
diplomatic question." 

It was fortunate that the Doshisha question did not 
assume narrow, national lines. It was in no sense a case 
of America against Japan. The best-minded among the 
Japanese, of every profession and faith, made protest against 
an act whose consequences could only result in stig- 
matizing the country. Leaders in the Kumi-ai Church, 
pastors and prominent graduates of the Doshisha wrote to 
Dr. Davis to stand firm on the high ground which he and 
General Mclvor had taken. The large majority of his own 
mission stood solidly behind him. He had the satisfaction 
of Dr. Gordon's daily counsel and cooperation, which was 
a tower of strength to him during the autumn. Moreover, 
though experts differed on the question, the case of the 
American Board appealed to the judgment of some of the 
greatest lawyers in Japan as certain of victory, if put into 
the courts. 

On November fourth, in a long interview with two lead- 
ing trustees, Dr. Davis was charged with inconceivable dis- 
courtesy and lack of consideration for the Department of 
Education and the Minister of Education of the empire. 
They said that such rudeness in a man who had lived so 
long in Japan and who knew the Japanese so well was 
inexplicable. Dr. Davis replied that since he must either 



THE STRUGGLE FOR THE DOSHISHA 251 

be impolite to the God who had founded the Doshisha and 
the Christ in whose faith the school had for more than 
twenty years been administered, and in which the Constitu- 
tion of the school had been built, or to the Department of 
Education, he would have to choose the latter. When he 
expressed the belief that Doshisha would gain the govern- 
ment privileges without the sacrifice of principle, in five 
years, the Trustees replied that they would not be granted 
in thirty. 

A little later in a conference with members of the Board 
of Trustees and their supporters, aiming at reconciliation, 
matters had reached an impasse, when one of the group 
declared that he could bear it no longer and rushed from 
the room. Dr. Gordon sprang after him, overtook him 
before he could leave the house, and leading him gently by 
the arm back into the midst of the group, said: " We must 
pray together before you go away." They all knelt down 
and prayed with a spirit that completely melted the little 
company. Then followed another hour of quieter confer- 
ence, in which they were drawn more closely together. 

This incident is typical of the spirit brought by Dr. 
Gordon into the work of those days. While Dr. Davis 
hammered away in frontal attacks, his colleague kept the 
spirit of brotherhood in Christ to the fore, and thus ren- 
dered a service of incalculable value. The two men, for fif- 
teen years close and sympathetic friends, made a very 
strong team. They supplemented each other to an unusual 
degree. There was no one in Japan who influenced Dr. 
Davis more, whose judgment he more valued, or whose 
tactful friendship and loving devotion moulded and sof- 
tened him, as the man who now stood shoulder to shoulder 
with him through these months of struggle. 

No one had suffered more keenly from the defection of 
the Doshisha than Dr. Gordon. None had watched its 
separation from vital Christianity, the fall from its noble 



252 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

estate, with a sadder heart than he. He had borne his 
share of criticism and disappointment, and with failing 
strength had carried an increasing amount of responsibility 
in the school and in evangelistic work. The Doshisha 
crisis found him in frail health and the long weeks of in- 
tense conference and anxiety over the ultimate outcome 
bore heavily upon him. He returned to Kyoto on the 
28th of October, greatly wearied, and never fully rallied 
from this weariness, going to America the following spring 
and on into the presence of the Master whom he had 
served so loyally, not long after. With him passed a 
rare combination of qualities that has never been fully 
replaced in the American Board Mission in Japan. A 
gentleness, bulwarked with strength, a devoutness and 
spiritual power, a capacity for friendship and wise counsel, 
a ripened scholarship and evangelistic power, a spirit of 
love and genial fellowship, that has left its permanent 
impress upon the Kumi-ai Church and the large group of 
workers, both Japanese and American, who were privileged 
to be his associates. 

In justice to the Trustees of the Doshisha, it must be 
admitted that they supported their position with an able 
and interesting line of argument. This was published by 
their chairman in the "Japan Mail" of March 11th, 1899. 
They held that Christianity was the basis of the moral 
education of the Doshisha, but understood this phrase to 
mean that Christianity was an essential element of moral 
education. They did not consider Doshisha a school for 
the propagation of Christianity, but interpreted Mr. Nee- 
sima's conception of a liberal educational institution in a 
broad way, without reference to religious creeds or exercises. 
They did not consider that the exclusion of the Bible con- 
flicted with this broad interpretation of the purposes of the 
school. Without government privileges the Middle School 1 

1 Academy. 



THE STRUGGLE FOR THE DOSHISHA 253 

was doomed; without a successful Middle School the great 
purpose of Mr. Neesima's life, a Christian university, could 
not be realized. To the Trustees the end justified the 
means. They believed that while religion and education 
went hand in hand, there was a clear delineation between 
the spheres of religion and education in the institution and 
that the growth of a free religious spirit would be improved 
by keeping religious teaching and ceremonial out of the 
class room. Finally, they understood that no part of the 
gifts to Doshisha, except the Harris Fund of $100,000, had 
been made conditional on Biblical teaching, nor that the 
Doshisha had made any promise to the donors, with the 
exception of the Harris Fund, which rendered their action 
a breach of trust. By cancelling Article VI of the Consti- 
tution they had no intention of changing the principles 
of the institution, but wished to clear the way for a new 
constitution based upon the new Civil Code of the empire. 
Thus, by creating Doshisha a Juridical Person and giving 
it a recognized status in the system of government edu- 
cation they would confer a great and lasting benefit upon 
the institution and put in it a way of realizing the plans 
of its founder. 

The American Board's representatives replied that the 
Doshisha was not a Joint Stock Company but was virtually 
a Trust Company; that every dollar given to the institu- 
tion was given in trust for the maintenance of Christian 
schools, in proof of which they held the original document 
of the organization of the company; that they could not, 
on behalf of the donors, recognize a school as Christian out 
of which the Bible and all Christian exercises had been 
excluded; moreover, that the Harris Fund, which the 
Trustees admitted had been given conditionally, was being 
used for the upkeep of the Middle School; that not only 
this large gift, but all subsequent foreign gifts, were given 
on the assumption that the statement in Article VI, making 



254 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

the Constitution forever unchangeable, would be honored 
by the Trustees, and now that the Trustees had abolished 
the old constitution they demanded its restitution and 
stated that the American Board would be satisfied with 
nothing less. 

After many weeks of conference, proposals and counter- 
proposals, little headway had been made. The Trustees 
would not yield the main point in question, but kept urging 
arbitration and compromise. They were willing to give 
up certain points in their position, provided the American 
Board would do the same. They finally proposed that 
Christianity be excluded from the Middle School only, 
and be reinstated in all other departments. General 
Mclvor's reply was that they were willing to arbitrate 
everything but the fundamental proposition that Christian- 
ity was to be the foundation of the moral teaching of all 
the schools. To this, on the tenth, the Trustees replied 
with a determined negative. 

There was now no other way but to institute legal pro- 
ceedings. General Mclvor and Dr. Davis decided to secure 
Mr. Masujima, a corporation lawyer of the greatest ability. 
After a conference of the three men, on November 29th, 
Dr. Davis was asked to prepare a chronological statement 
of the history and facts of the whole Doshisha case, to be 
used as the basis of Mr. Masujima's brief. During the 
first half of December he was busy preparing this docu- 
ment. " We have gained an advantage by allowing every- 
thing possible to be done, during two months, to effect a 
peaceful settlement, so we have Count Okuma's goodwill 
and that of others, as we begin this step. I believe God 
has been controlling events better than we have dared to 
hope. Mr. Masujima has studied over the prepared state- 
ment, and thinks we have a very strong case." 

About this time, Dr. James L. Barton wrote to him: 
" You have taken high ground on this Doshisha question 



THE STRUGGLE FOR THE DOSHISHA 255 

and have maintained it with great force. I believe that 
the position taken by the Kumi-ai Conference and by the 
Christians, generally, in Japan, is due, in no small measure, 
to your own statements of the situation, which have helped 
them to see the matter in its true light. You have taken 
a position that needs to be held. Remember that back of 
you are not only the Prudential Committee but the entire 
American Board and the Christian sentiment of the world." 

It was fortunate for the American Board that Minister 
Buck took such a lively interest in the Doshisha case. His 
repeated interviews with Count Okuma and Marquis I to 
deepened the conviction of these statesmen of the justice 
of the American Board's claims. An additional considera- 
tion was the fact that the long-looked-for treaties, placing 
Japan on an equal footing with western nations in matters 
of legal jurisdiction and customs revenue, were at that 
time on the point of becoming effective. This fact impressed 
them with the seriousness of the situation from the inter- 
national standpoint. Such a question as this must be kept 
out of the courts. 

The filing of the new Doshisha Constitution with the 
Department of Education was the occasion for Minister 
Buck to assist in an official capacity, and he at once sent a 
protest to the Department against the acceptance of the 
changed constitution. This protest and the prospect of 
legal proceedings by the American Board stirred the De- 
partment to action. Here was a case coming before the 
attention of western countries which would expose the in- 
consistencies of its restrictions upon religion and upon the 
religious freedom guaranteed by the Japanese Constitution. 
The Minister of Education sent for Minister Buck and the 
President of the Doshisha Trustees, and, after a long con- 
ference, requested the latter for a statement of the contror 
verted points and of the American Board's claims. 

He next had an interview with General Mclvor and 



256 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

Mr. Masujima, and told them that the matter had been 
discussed by the counsellors into the small hours of the 
previous night, and that they were to meet again that day 
to decide the general question of their policy toward Chris- 
tian schools, which could not be put off longer. He added 
that treaty revision was soon to come into effect and that 
the reference of this matter to them by the United States 
Minister and the pending lawsuit made some change im- 
perative, either the giving of religious freedom to Christian 
schools, with the privileges, or the taking away of the 
privileges they had given to the Doshisha, for, he said, 
" We now understand that these schools of the Doshisha 
to which we have given the privileges were founded and 
are being supported by Christian money, which was given 
on the basis of their Christian character, and hence it can 
not go on as it is." 

On November 19th, Dr. Davis wrote to Secretary Barton, 
advising him to seek an interview with Secretary Hay of 
the Department of State regarding the Doshisha case. He 
had no thought of the United States government inter- 
fering in the matter, but feared lest the Trustees might 
prejudice the State Department through the Japanese 
Minister in Washington. To safeguard against possible 
developments, Dr. Barton followed the advice from Japan 
and effected an interview with Secretary Hay, but not 
before the private settlement of the dispute had been 
secured in Japan. 

Count Okuma took high ground in support of the Amer- 
ican Board's claims. On the 19th of November, he told 
General Mclvor that there were but two alternatives open 
to the Trustees: — to subscribe the money to buy the 
American Board's investment in the Doshisha, or to go 
back to the Constitution, lose the government privileges, 
and take the chance of gaining them later. He stated that 
his interest in the Doshisha case was threefold: First, his 



THE STRUGGLE FOR THE DOSHISHA 257 

interest in Mr. Neesima's memory; second, his interest in 
preserving the friendship of the American nation, and, 
third, his desire to see what he considered a wrong act 
righted. He said, moreover, that if the representatives 
of the American Board went to law, they went with his 
good will, but that he believed it would be unnecessary. 

One of the cross-currents of public opinion that had to 
be met was the belief of not a few friends of the Doshisha, 
who really sympathized with the effort to restore the Con- 
stitution, that if the American Board were successful in the 
contest with the Trustees, the missionaries would control 
the future Doshisha and that it would lose its broad educa- 
tional ideals and become a mission school. It was not 
an easy matter to convince the Japanese public that the 
American Board could go to such lengths as to retain two 
lawyers and depute two of its leaders to contend for only 
a principle. There were many doubts and speculations 
regarding the motives of the principal actors in such a 
novel contest. It was at this point that Dr. Davis was 
able to render a valuable service. His acquaintance among 
alumni and friends of the Doshisha was very wide, and he 
had been known, from the beginning, to be pledged to its 
highest interests. He sought out prominent Doshisha 
men in the capital, discussed the main issue in the case, clari- 
fied their doubts as to the ultimate outcome for the Dosh- 
isha and gained their support of the American Board's 
action. He assured these men that the restoration of the 
school to its original status was the sole motive of the 
Board, that it was a secondary matter whether the school 
ever returned to cooperation with the mission, that it was 
doubtful whether the Board or American friends would 
cooperate with the Doshisha again, but that they longed 
to have its fair name and the right of donors restored in- 
violate and protected for the future. 

The latter part of December, Dr. Davis returned to 



258 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

Kyoto to spend Christmas with his family and to look 
up certain old Doshisha documents. He wrote the day 
before Christmas to Dr. Barton: — "The promised deci- 
sion of the Department of Education has not come and it 
begins to look as if they are merely temporizing. We 
await the result in hope, but unless God is with us, the 
matter will not be satisfactorily settled, although the 
Trustees resign." It was a trying situation in which to be 
patient. He urged his legal advisers to notify the Depart- 
ment that they would wait no longer in sending notice of 
litigation to the Trustees, but Mr. Mclvor advised a little 
longer delay, hoping that the deadlock would collapse of 
itself. 

December 29th, a letter reached Dr. Davis from General 
Mclvor stating that the Trustees had sent in their resigna- 
tions to the Department of Education. The mass of evi- 
dence which had been arrayed against them, the general 
note of dissatisfaction that was growing in volume among 
the public, as well as in the ranks of their alumni, together 
with the pressure brought to bear from the highest official 
circles of the empire, had at last forced them to realize 
that there was no alternative but resignation. The tension 
of many months was over and the way was at last open for 
a restored Doshisha. 



Chapter XVII 
" RECONSTRUCTION " 

THE resignation of the Trustees of the Doshisha in no 
sense implied that a new and restored school was 
guaranteed upon the basis of the original constitu- 
tion. Both in enrollment and in reputation the Doshisha 
had dropped so far that it was pointed to as a conspicu- 
ous case of a Christian school that had run on the rocks. 
The impression was abroad that the American Board had 
taken its strong action in order to gain entire control of 
the institution and that it would now be a purely mission 
school. Under these conditions, where were the able men 
who could be induced to become members of the new 
Board of Trustees? Who, indeed, would be bold enough 
to attempt to play the difficult game of cooperation with 
the American Board and its missionaries? This was the 
new problem which faced the American Board's represen- 
tatives, a problem as much more difficult than the legal 
issue they had been forcing as diplomacy and reconstruc- 
tion is a greater task than war and destruction. 

Upon receiving word of the resignation of the Board of 
Trustees, Dr. Barton wrote to Dr. Davis, " This resignation 
only clears the way for further action. You have a most 
delicate task to perform; delicate because you cannot dic- 
tate terms, while you must secure concessions and privi- 
leges in the new organization which will prevent a recur- 
rence of this deplorable event. You have, indeed, a tre- 
mendous task before you to get the Doshisha into shape 
again." 

Drs. Davis and Gordon spent the first two months of 
1899 in an incessant search for a new Board of Trustees 

259 



260 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

Those weeks of careful negotiation and conference, of 
approach to man after man upon the subject of trusteeship, 
of meeting opposition to some excellent candidates, of dis- 
appointment in the refusal of others, were among the most 
wearing of the whole winter, but were made joyful by the 
expectation of success. The difficulty lay not in finding 
able men, of consecrated Christian character, but to find 
men who were willing to assume the responsibility of re- 
organization and men who were acceptable to not only the 
alumni of the school, but, also, to the large benefactors 
who had created its endowment funds. Count Okuma and 
Baron Shibusawa, prominent among the donors to the 
Doshisha, were sympathetic and broadminded regarding 
the problem of the new Board. They were strong in their 
conviction that the new men must all be earnest Christians, 
in order to win back the support and confidence of former 
friends and the American constituency. The question of 
the president of the Board was a central one, and upon it 
hung the winning of other men to its membership. 

Dr. Davis called upon Mr. Saibara, a prominent Member 
of Parliament from Kochi. He promised to serve on the 
Board if Mr. Kataoka Kankichi, a fellow member from 
Kochi and for many years the President of the Lower 
House of Parliament, would consent to take the presi- 
dency of the school. To secure such a fearless Christian 
statesman as head of the Doshisha would be a first guar- 
antee of success. It would attract other strong men to the 
Board and would win popular confidence in the school. 
Dr. Davis endorsed Dr. Greene's suggestion of electing Mr. 
Kataoka, President of the Board of Trustees and Honorary 
President of the School, and of appointing a Vice-President 
who would be the acting head of the Doshisha. He wrote a 
general letter reporting the progress of negotiations for Trustees 
to his colleagues of the Kyoto station, and asked their con- 
sent to approach Mr. Kataoka. He feared, most of all, 



11 RECONSTRUCTION " 261 

the possibility of a triangular deadlock in the event of 
three conflicting groups of candidates being chosen by the 
alumni, by the donors and by the representatives of the 
American Board, and for this reason he looked to the com- 
ing interviews with Count Okuma and Baron Shibusawa 
as of the utmost significance. " Count Okuma finally 
fixed last Sabbath morning as the time for giving his de- 
cision about the candidates we had named. I felt some- 
what as I did on that beautiful Sabbath day at Shiloh, 
thirty-six years ago, that this was not exactly Sabbath 
business, but as I was not responsible for bringing on the 
engagement any more than the one at Shiloh, I decided 
that it was the Lord's business and went with General 
Mclvor and Mr. Masujima to the Count's residence." His 
relief was great when the Count expressed his pleasure at 
having a full list of earnest Christian men as Trustees, and 
later ratified the nominees of the American Board and 
named one of his own choice. The first man to consent 
to act upon the new board was Mr. Tomioka, chaplain of 
the Sugamo Prison in Tokyo. On January 16th Dr. 
Davis called upon Mr. President Kataoka, of the Lower 
House of Parliament, who received him cordially and was 
delighted to learn of the prospective restoration of the 
Doshisha. When Dr. Davis proposed his accepting the 
presidency of the school, Mr. Kataoka said that he was not 
fitted for the position, but that if the Board of Trustees 
presented the matter to him he would carefully consider it. 
On hearing of the interview with Mr. Kataoka, Mr. 
Saibara promised Dr. Davis to serve as a trustee. Mr. 
Kondo, a prominent Christian manufacturer of Tokyo, after 
a conference which lasted three hours, also consented to 
become a member of the Board. 

The former Trustees had shown great consideration in 
resigning in such a way as to make the transfer of the 
school as simple a matter as possible. If they had resigned 



262 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

in a body, without appointing representatives to pass over 
the property to the new Board, the situation would 
have been highly complicated. There now followed a 
period of three weeks of work upon a new constitution and 
arrangements for the nomination of members representing 
the alumni and the donors. General Mclvor prepared a 
draft of the Constitution which was in harmony with the 
original principles of the Doshisha and in accord with the 
new Civil Code and which also safeguarded the future 
interests of the American Board. 

Dr. Davis utilized this lull in his work by publishing a 
small book on the Pentateuch. He also became interested 
in the work of Chaplain Tomioka in the Sugamo Prison. 
The prisoners were in need of good literature. He pub- 
lished a sketch of Mr. Tomioka's life and work for prison 
reform, mailed it to two hundred foreign business men in 
Yokohama and, with General Mclvor's cooperation, called 
upon most of them during February, soliciting funds for 
the prisoners. Six hundred yen was raised in this way for 
a prison library at Sugamo. That Dr. Davis, with the 
strain of the last months and the load of Doshisha prob- 
lems upon his shoulders, could, in this interval, throw him- 
self so heartily into an entirely different work and carry it 
through successfully, impressed General Mclvor with his 
versatility. 

The new Board was formally appointed February 11th, 
1899, and six days later met in Tokyo, rescinded the action 
of their predecessors and reinstated the exscinded articles 
of the original constitution of the Doshisha. " It seems a 
strange coincidence," he wrote, " that just one year after the 
Constitution was broken, we are met here in the same city 
to perfect its restoration, and, as we hope, set forces in 
motion which will restore the school. General Mclvor, Mr. 
Kondo and I have had two hours and a half talk and 
lunched together at the Tokyo Club, and now go to Kudan 



" RECONSTRUCTION " 263 

to have our photo taken with the new Board. Then we go 
to Dr. Greene's home for dinner and the final business 
session, and close the evening with a praise service. There 
is a driving rainstorm, today, cold and dismal without, 
but the cheer within the soul is so great that we do not 
notice the weather." 

At this meeting the definition of the Christianity which 
should be the basis of the moral instruction in the Dosh- 
isha was debated. The discussion centered upon the use 
of the word " Evangelical," since its meaning in Japan had 
become ambiguous. Finally, Dr. Davis wrote out a state- 
ment, which, after slight modification, was adopted. It 
read: — "'It is understood by us that the Christianity 
which is to form the basis of the moral teaching in all de- 
partments of the Doshisha, under the unchangeable prin- 
ciples of its Constitution, is that body of living and funda- 
mental Christian principles believed and accepted in com- 
mon by the great Christian churches of the world." 

Dr. Barton wrote: — "Allow me to say that we all 
feel that you and Mr. Mclvor have managed the case with 
wonderful skill. We do not believe that you have done this 
through your own wisdom, alone, but that you have had 
divine help. If you are able to bring about a recognition 
of religious institutions in Japan, it will be a great thing 
accomplished. That time will have to come and undoubt- 
edly your efforts have tended to hasten it. It cannot be 
but that out of this will grow a deeper respect for Chris- 
tian morality and I have no doubt that the American 
Board with its mission in Japan will stand for more here- 
after thari it ever has before." 

On the following Monday, March 6th, Dr. Davis started 
for home upon the noon train. " The great struggle was 
ended; God had given us the victory. The Doshisha was 
to be restored and saved. The first few miles, I was the 
only passenger in the second-class compartment. My feel- 



264 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

ings completely overcame me and I broke down and wept 
for very joy, like a child." Except for two very brief 
trips to Kyoto, he had been away from home and family 
for six months. During this time he had declined every 
social or speaking engagement that could detract from the 
successful pursuit of the one object of his enforced stay in 
the North. Aside from the frequent entertainment that 
he enjoyed in the hospitable home of Dr. and Mrs. Greene 
in Tokyo, he had accepted but one social engagement 
during this half year of work. It had been a period of 
exile, but the satisfactory outcome was its own reward. 

Following his return to Kyoto, General and Mrs. Mclvor 
visited for four days in Dr. Davis' home. An interesting 
friendship had arisen between the two men. Thrown al- 
most constantly into each other's company under most 
trying circumstances, for six months, they grew to know 
one another intimately. General Mclvor had a warm 
sympathy for the type of Christian work represented by 
the Doshisha. His admiration for his missionary colleague 
was sincere. " I have seldom, if ever, seen a man of such 
combined force and genuine religion as Dr. Davis. His re- 
ligion was expressed in so many practical, broad ways that 
he exerted a strong influence upon every one he met. His 
theology may have been conservative, but I never knew 
a broader man in interests, or one more lenient in his judg- 
ment and criticisms. I gained a new conception of Chris- 
tianity in my association with him. His determination and 
impetuosity were great and sometimes exceeded his tact 
and diplomacy, but his heart always rang true and he was 
absolutely open and aboveboard in everything that he 
attempted. A remarkable characteristic was his ability to 
hold the personal friendship and admiration of the men he 
was most earnestly opposing." On the other hand, Dr. 
Davis gained strong impressions of General Mclvor. " I 
never saw such iron will and such clear, forceful logic 



M RECONSTRUCTION " 265 

combined in one man before," he said, in describing the 
lawyer's attitude in his first interview with the Board of 
Trustees. 

Hard duties seemed naturally to fall to him. A promi- 
nent member of the old Board, strongly backed by a group 
of his fellow trustees and the choice of a large body of 
alumni, was a candidate for the office of president. The 
mission was a unit against his appointment, a small mi- 
nority of Japanese opposed him and the American Board 
did not favor him for the position. Four exciting sessions 
of the Board of Trustees were held in Kyoto on the 12th 
and 13th of March. At midnight of the 13th, when a 
prominent trustee said that he would resign if the popular 
candidate was not elected, and one or two others made the 
same statement, such expressions as, " Well, we all might 
as well resign," began to circulate the table. Finally one 
of the trustees arose and asked Dr. Davis which he thought 
preferable, to elect the candidate in question, as president 
of Doshisha, or to close the school for a few years. It 
was a trying question to answer in the presence of the can- 
didate and his supporters, but without a moment's hesita- 
tion, the reply came, " I think it would be better to close 
the school." " I went home and to bed, but not to sleep, 
and spent the night in prayer. I did not know whether I 
should find that we had a Board of Trustees the next 
morning or not. ... I found, however, soon after reaching 
the hall, that the ship had righted itself." Two different 
groups of trustees had been led during the night to think 
of Mr. Saibara, the Member of Parliament, for President of 
the Board. Mr. Saibara's name had been proposed before 
his arrival, and upon coming into the room and being told 
that he was nominated for the presidency, he immediately 
said that he was not fitted for the post and laid his head 
upon the table and sobbed. He begged to be released, but 
all were unanimous and urged so earnestly that Mr. Sai- 



266 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

bara, at length, consented. Mr. Hirotsu, who had recently 
returned from America, was nominated as Acting Principal 
of the school. 

Of that midnight meeting he wrote: " It seemed as if 
the new Board were going to pieces. ... It was a terrible 
test for these young, untried men to have to go against 
the alumni, and against the solid faculty of the school 
sitting right before them, and to know that they were under 
a fire of criticism and misrepresentation, but they finally 
stood like rocks and made the decision, and the morning 
session was calm and unanimous. Mr. Saibara is a host. 
He is determined that the school shall be solidly Christian 
and he gives confidence to the rest." 

Dr. Davis' admiration for the group of men who without 
experience, without assurance of financial backing and with 
the certainty of the withdrawal of every government privi- 
lege, had put the school back upon a Christian basis, was 
very great. He knew many of the criticisms that were 
being launched at these men and how they were being 
watched for a single false step or sign of weakness. He 
knew, too, that it had been against the personal prefer- 
ence and advantage of many of them to serve upon the 
new Board. He regarded them all as heroes, and felt that 
the least that the mission and the American Board could 
do was to strongly support them at the beginning of 
their hard task of reconstruction. 

The enrollment of the Doshisha had dropped to one- 
fourth of its former members, while its spirit had equally 
declined. Only a dozen earnest Christian students re- 
mained and several of the strongest professors, dissatis- 
fied with the new trustees, had resigned their positions. 
It was, however, decided to open the Theological Depart- 
ment again in cooperation with the mission and to 
continue the Middle School through the year without 
change, hoping, in the interval, for a reversal of policy 



" RECONSTRUCTION " 267 

in the Educational Department toward the Christian 
schools. 

The Board was hardly elected before Dr. Davis was de- 
vising ways and means of helping the Doshisha through 
the succeeding critical years. The importance of keeping 
up a full teaching force and a complete equipment in spite 
of a small enrollment could not be over-estimated if the 
Doshisha was to live. His letters of this period are full of 
appeals to Boston and to American friends for help. " I 
wish there were among the many friends of the Doshisha, 
in America, some who would make a special gift of, say, 
$1,500 a year, for two or three years, to aid the school 
through this crisis. If it can be helped for a few years, I 
believe it will be restored to its former Christian spirit, and 
that its numbers will increase so that with what endow- 
ment it has it will stand upon its own feet." 

With the reopening of the Theological Department came 
the old question of Dr. Davis' relation to the chair of 
Theology. Years before he had suggested to Secretary 
Clark the finding of a young man of exceptional ability 
and specialized training to take his place in the Theological 
Department. 

His doubts as to his own acceptability for this work had 
been gradually crystallizing. He was no longer a young 
man. He was one of the oldest in the mission. In the 
meantime younger men, trained in the newer schools of 
theological thought, had come to the field with ideas 
which were more in accord with the thinking of the Japa- 
nese church. He applied the old test of his boyhood years, 
" How can I make my life count the most for God and for 
men?" There was no faltering. To square true to this 
base-line of action he must resign the work into which he 
had put the study and devotion of twenty-five years. It 
was not that he had lost faith in the Theology which he 
believed and taught; he was never more convinced that it 



268 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

contained the power of God unto men for salvation. It 
was rather that he believed that the young men of the 
church whom the Doshisha was training for the ministry 
were not satisfied with the system of truth which he repre- 
sented. He could not be a stumbling block in the progress 
of the church or of the school; if there must be sacrifice, 
let it be the man and not the community. It was char- 
acteristic of him that he did not wait for these facts to be 
pointed out to him. He had long since sensed them and 
decided upon action when time for action should come. If 
the surgeon's knife must be used, he preferred to apply it 
with his own hands. 

On the 11th of April he wrote to Dr. Barton: — "You 
will have heard of the action of our Board of Trustees in 
regard to the reopening of the Doshisha Theological De- 
partment from next September. I think Mr. Albrecht is, 
perhaps, the only man in our mission who would give 
complete satisfaction to the Japanese friends in the position 
of dean of that department. As a German, he is able to 
give the students the most advanced continental theories. 
How much help that is to them I do not know, but it 
satisfies them as I cannot. My views have become so 
broadened and I have realized so much of the length and 
breadth and height and depth of these great truths, espe- 
cially, of the person and work of Christ, that I am unable 
to accept any of the narrow, so-called new views of them 
that are common in Japan now. If my conscience would 
allow me to teach what is popular and keep silent on the 
rest, I might continue. Besides, I have the reputation of 
being narrow and behind the times. Hence, at my earnest 
request, I have been relieved, and shall give myself largely, 
while the Master has work for me here, to evangelistic work. 
There is plenty of work to do. I have refused more than 
I have accepted since last Fall. Next Saturday I am to 
go across the Lake to Bodaiji, where they will have com- 



" RECONSTRUCTION " 269 

munion and an old woman of nearly ninety will be bap- 
tized. Next Sabbath, I am to preach in the Doshisha in 
the morning and in the weavers* district in the evening." 
Then without a word of pessimism for the Doshisha or the 
general situation, he continued, " The outlook is very 
cheering here. I wish we might receive the needed rein- 
forcements. The coming of Pastors Harada and Miyagawa 
to give addresses is a great encouragement." 



Chapter XVI II 
FIELDS WHITE TO THE HARVEST 

ALTHOUGH Dr. Davis' name has been more closely 
identified with the Doshisha than with any other 
missionary activity, Christian education never lim- 
ited the scope of his endeavors, nor did he consider it the 
ultimate goal or the paramount achievement of Christian 
mission in Japan. From first to last his heart was fixed 
upon the establishment of the Kingdom of God in the 
empire through a society composed of individuals whose 
hearts had been changed by the power of Christ. His 
motives while teacher were evangelistic; his theology was 
evangelistic. He did not treat it primarily as a science, but 
as a means to evangelize men. If for fifteen years he de- 
voted himself to the firm establishment of the Doshisha 
schools, he never forgot that this was but a means to an 
end. Yet it was his constant aim that the Doshisha 
should be saved from the narrower sphere of training 
Christian workers, alone, to a Christian school of liberal 
culture. 

He believed that educational work without evangelism 
was not fulfilling its highest purpose, and that evangelism, 
without a sound educational foundation, lacked depth and 
stability. The degree to which these two branches of the 
Congregational work have sustained each other; the inti- 
mate way in which the life blood of the school has per- 
meated the Kumi-ai body throughout Japan, while the 
latter has applied the laboratory of faith and practice for 
the Doshisha, is a striking instance upon foreign soil of the 
power of Congregationalism to achieve large results through 
an intimate connection between college and church. A 

270 



FIELDS WHITE TO THE HARVEST 271 

determining factor in the choice of Kyoto as a site for the 
school had been its central location, surrounded by the 
most populous provinces of Japan; its strategic position in 
relation to evangelistic work. 

Leading the way, himself, he encouraged the young men 
of the Theological Department of the Doshisha to work in 
the surrounding districts. Point after point was opened in 
this way to be manned by students, who worked on alter- 
nate Sabbaths and spent their summer vacations in this 
country evangelism. For a period of years there were over 
fifty towns and villages in the provinces near Kyoto which 
were occupied by Doshisha students during the summer. 
These summer and week-end preaching places enabled the 
Christian students to have a taste of the joy of the work 
for which many were preparing, it kept them warm in 
faith, and was a means of supporting a considerable num- 
ber of men who could not have otherwise remained in 
school. The net results of this work were large, and 
church after church was organized later with these same 
young men as pastors. 

For many years it was Dr. Davis' privilege to have the 
oversight of much of this outside evangelism. He was accus- 
tomed to take the week-end for touring and, after five days 
of teaching, Friday afternoon or Saturday morning would 
find him starting for some point in a neighboring province 
to give encouragement to a struggling church or a group of 
half -organized churches. For a period of five years, from 
1888 to 1893, he had the oversight of the evangelistic work 
of the whole Kyoto district. To the correspondence and 
conferences with the evangelists and the constant calls for 
personal cooperation at numerous points in this large field, 
he would gladly have given his entire time. It came to 
form the background of his mind to which he retired for 
relief and comfort from some of the distressing problems 
confronting him in the school. Here, in these waiting har- 



272 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

vest fields of the country districts, was an open door of 
opportunity, which no man could shut, where he was always 
welcome, and where the power of the truths that he taught 
was vindicated by glorious results. 

A glimpse into his diary, in the autumn of 1893, shows 
Dr. Davis in the midst of this two-fold work: " Sat. 
Sept. 30th, went to Yawata and Sabbath morning 
walked on to Osumi, five miles, and held a communion 
service, with a sermon in the morning and preaching in 
the evening. Back Monday morning and into the school. 
Tuesday, the Gordons arrived from America, and had sup- 
per at our house. Friday evening a memorial service 
for Mr. Foulk. Sat. went to Mikumo, preached in the 
evening, and went on five miles to Minakuchi to get a 
quiet hotel and slept till seven next morning. Eight hours 
of meetings that day, including two sermons and a com- 
munion service. Men and women were drinking and carous- 
ing in adjoining rooms, so I slept but little. Back Mon- 
day morning and met my classes in the afternoon with 
eighteen hours of teaching that week. Two long faculty 
meetings this week and a conference in Osaka." 

A letter to his children describes one of these week- 
end journeys: — "Nov. 18th, 1897. Dear children: — I 
had an interesting trip to Tamba. I left here at eight 
o'clock Saturday morning, and had dinner in Kamioka and 
went on to Shuchi, arriving at four. Sunday, the dedica- 
tion of the church took place. It is only 18 by 35 ft. and 
very plain, but I think the Christians, who out of their 
poverty have built it, were as happy as any people ever 
were in the world. They had arranged beautiful bouquets 
of flowers and the service lasted nearly two hours. The 
church, with its furniture, cost one hundred and thirty 
dollars, and as they had only raised ninety, there was a 
deficit of forty dollars, which we raised during the service. 
In the afternoon, I preached a sermon on the Holy Spirit, 



FIELDS WHITE TO THE HARVEST 273 

which was followed by a communion service and thirteen 
persons were baptized. Nearly one hundred members out of 
a total membership of one hundred and four were present, 
some coming eighteen miles from opposite directions. An 
old paralytic woman was brought in and lay on the floor 
all through the service. Afterward I walked up to the 
one-hundred-foot waterfall, which is now embowered in a 
mass of maple-leaved glory. In the evening, we had a mass 
meeting, with Messrs. Hori, Murakami and myself preach- 
ing. The house was packed, inside and out, with no stand- 
ing room left. After the meeting many of the Christians 
came to the hotel and talked until nearly midnight. Mr. 
Mayeda, the Kyoto-Fu Assemblyman for Tamba, came 
home late Saturday night to be present at the dedication 
and started back to Kyoto at five o'clock Monday morn- 
ing. He acted as usher all day. Yesterday, I started before 
daybreak and reached home in time for my afternoon Bible 
class in the Girls' School." 

There were very real hardships connected with the work, 
and, however much he might make light of them, they were 
facts to be reckoned with. The lack of sufficient sleep is a 
serious tax upon the strength of the touring missionary in 
Japan. Conditions in the hotels could scarcely be more 
poorly adapted for restful or unbroken sleep: paper parti- 
tions, through which the slightest noise penetrates; ad- 
joining guests, often entertained by carousing friends; 
barking dogs; the probability of noisy neighbors across the 
street and the certainty of early departures from your 
hotel at an hour when you are beginning to congratulate 
yourself that the noises of the night have worn themselves 
out. Add to these, such small matters as hard beds on 
the floor, quilts that have been used by generations of 
travellers, and voracious fleas that consider the foreigner 
an interesting change of diet, and one may understand 
some of the ordinary conditions of interior travel in Japan. 



274 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

In the remote country inns, before the days of the Osaka 
ninety-sen alarm-clock, landlords depended upon the 
crowing of the roosters for telling the night hours. Fowls 
whose crowing habits had been carefully noted were housed 
upon the smoky rafters of the great, common apartment 
in which all slept, and by their crowing the hour of depar- 
ture of early guests was regulated. It was not uncommon 
for the traveller to ask to be allowed to sleep under " the 
three o'clock bird," or " the four o'clock bird," as the case 
might be, to insure against oversleeping. In a town near 
Kyoto, where Dr. Davis occasionally visited, a vociferous 
chanticleer of irregular habits serenaded him so frequently 
at night, in the hotel where he was compelled to stay, 
that he finally tried the plan of paying the landlord to 
carry his bird to the opposite side of the village, where it 
was kept in solitary confinement whenever he came to town. 

Of hard beds, insufficient food, cold, long jinricksha rides 
across mountain ranges in the dead of winter, Dr. Davis 
never complained, but with his nervous temperament and 
mental activity the steady shortage of sleep was a con- 
stant drain upon his strength. He fought for his sleep as 
for very life and would not infrequently walk or ride on to 
the next village to chance finding a quiet hotel. " Last 
night, a group of people drank and sang in the adjoining 
room until after one o'clock, while next door in a govern- 
ment office, some one was dictating records in a loud voice 
until nearly the same hour, and at half-past four, the 
opening of the hotel shutters proclaimed that the night was 
over. 

" We started early in jinrickshas, and reached Kamioka, 
where boats start, about noon. The water was so low in 
the river that progress was slow, and I did not reach 
Arashiyama until two. ... I then bought four fresh eggs, 
a cent's worth of sugar and two and a half cents' worth of 
boiled rice and made a rice pudding for dinner. I have 



FIELDS WHITE TO THE HARVEST 275 

had some curious dishes this time. One popular dish is a 
sandwich made of boiled rice, with a raw trout cut open 
and laid on top, with head, fins and all on; it is pretty 
good if one is hungry. I bought a tin of beef and found 
it was put up with sugar and ginger. It was good, though. 
I slept an average of three hours and a half in twenty-four 
for a week, but came back feeling very well. . . . These 
little churches have the largest organs that I ever heard; 
they cover several acres. The rice fields are all about them, 
coming right up to the sides of two of the churches, and 
the frogs keep up a continual and almost deafening roar. 
In the mountains the other day, where no foreigner had 
ever been before, I asked an old farmer the way and talked 
with him a moment. He looked at me closely, and then 
said to another near by : — ' He looks like a foreigner ; he 
has a beard, but he speaks like one of us.' It is precious 
to see the interest of those simple Christians in the work 
of spreading the Gospel and to see how the people come to 
listen." 

There were also many demands for local evangelism in 
Kyoto. In addition to usually preaching night and morn- 
ing in the churches and preaching places of the city, many 
of which he had had an active part in organizing, there were 
calls for work with special groups, such as companies of 
workmen in the neighboring carpenter's home, the moun- 
tain men at Yase and the factory hands in the weavers' 
district of the city. 

Dr. Davis' appreciation of natural beauty was a factor 
in his touring which was a constant inspiration and a source 
of rest. His letters are full of descriptions of the mountain 
grandeur and the beauties of the autumnal and spring 
foliage. Of the journey from Kyoto to the west coast, he 
wrote: " It seemed as if we were travelling all day through 
fairy land; the steep mountain sides were aflame with Au- 
tumn glory; maples, sumacs, and a dozen other shades of 






276 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

yellow and red, and blended with them all were as many 
shades of green; the pyramidal foliage of the cryptomeria, 
the rounder cones of the arbor-vitae, the more irregular 
branches of the pines and many other half deciduous trees 
which do not shed their leaves till Spring. Huge moun- 
tain bouquets with lateral valleys on each side of the road, 
and cascades and water-falls framed in the glory of the 
foliage. During five days I travelled through such beauty 
and rejoiced as I thought: ' If earth is so beautiful, what 
must heaven be ! ' 

" Sabbath, it poured all day, but this did not prevent 
thirty Christians from coming to the service, many of 
whom walked seven to twelve miles through the pouring 
rain over mountain roads. We met in a little room with 
space for thirty people to crowd in on the floor. The 
walls were of mud, the ceiling so low that I could just 
stand, but it seemed like the very gateway of heaven as 
Mr. Okabe preached the sermon and I baptized seven 
adults and one child and we observed the Lord's Supper 
together. That evening we had a good audience in a 
larger room. The next morning, after an early breakfast 
of salt fish and rice, we took the twenty-five mile ride over 
the mountains to Tsuruga Oka. It is a scattering village 
of fifty straw- thatched houses. I was the first foreigner 
who had ever been in the village and was given the best 
room in Mr. Uchimak's house and a bed of thick quilts on 
the mats, with two above for covering. It is a good deal 
like sleeping between two thick boards, but one gets used 
to it. I was given an extra allowance of eggs, too, and for 
two days lived high on eggs and rice. The next morning 
the old father and mother and a son and his wife were 
examined for baptism. We listened to the story of their 
conversion, then Mr. Okabe preached a sermon, I baptized 
them and we observed the Lord's Supper together. The 
whole family, except one son, are Christians now, and it 



FIELDS WHITE TO THE HARVEST 277 

was touching to see their joy as they sat all together, 
receiving the sacred emblems of Christ's sufferings and 
death. In the afternoon, I spoke for an hour to the head 
man of the village, with minor officials, school teachers and 
students. In the evening, although it rained, a goodly 
company listened until half -past ten. The next morning 
the rain ceased, and I walked half of the thirty-six miles 
over the mountains to Kyoto. I was fourteen hours 
on the way, reaching home at nine o'clock, tired but 
happy.' 

With the withdrawal of the American Board mission- 
aries from the Doshisha in 1896, the way was open for 
much more extended tours. He eagerly accepted invita- 
tions for evangelistic work, which began to come to him 
from all parts of Japan. Each year now saw him taking 
from two to six extended tours to different parts of the 
empire. When it was known in the Kumi-ai body that Dr. 
Davis was no longer connected with the Doshisha, calls 
came from six of his old pupils to settle in their fields for 
exclusively evangelistic work. It seemed, however, too 
uncertain a juncture to make such a radical change. He 
believed that the pendulum of the school would swing back, 
and he wished to remain where he was to watch develop- 
ments and, in the meantime, do all in his power to advance 
the general cause. 

In rapid succession he visited widely separated sections 
of the country from northern Hokkaido to Kyushiu and 
Shikoku on the south. These trips far afield continued 
to impress him with the immensity of the task remaining 
for the Christian church and with the timeliness of a for- 
ward evangelistic movement. Of a tour in the North he 
wrote: — " Thirty- two days, mostly spent in Japanese inns, 
living on Japanese food, sleeping from three to five hours a 
night and speaking thirty- two times, but well, happy and 
not very tired. What are the impressions gained from the 



278 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

tour? First, Japan is more ready for the Gospel than ever 
before. The official classes are more favorably disposed and 
the masses more ready to hear than at any time since Ja- 
pan was opened. Second, the era of doubt and rationalis- 
tic discussion has passed its zenith. Many of the pastors 
and Christians realize their need of a positive faith and are 
hungering for spiritual food. Third, wherever earnest men 
are preaching a positive Gospel, churches are alive and souls 
are being gathered into the Kingdom. Fourth, the lack of 
workers. That great Aidzu valley, with its three hundred 
square miles of villages, has no missionary. Oh, how they 
did plead for a missionary! Echigo, over one hundred 
miles long and half as wide, has only two missionaries and 
ten Japanese workers. Its great plains and valleys impress 
me with the fact that, ' there remaineth yet very much 
land to be possessed.' " 

It was undoubtedly the close touch which Dr. Davis 
kept with the general evangelistic field and his familiarity 
with the disproportion of Christian workers between coun- 
try and city that kept him from first to last an advocate 
of mission expansion. During the dark days of mission 
fortunes, when some were leaving Japan, others planning 
an early return and nearly all were advising against more 
reinforcements, he never ceased urging the American Board 
and the Congregational churches to sustain and strengthen 
their work in Japan. He had had ample grounds for dis- 
illusionment since those early days in the eighties, when it 
seemed as if all Japan were to be swept into the Kingdom 
in a generation; he had received his share of opposition 
and criticism from the Japanese, but with prophetic vision 
he saw that these vicissitudes were temporary movements, 
incident to the re-birth of a nation. His intimate knowl- 
edge of the rank and file of the church led him to the con- 
viction that it still welcomed the cooperation of the mis- 
sionary and that it was merely a matter of time until the 



FIELDS WHITE TO THE HARVEST 279 

missionary should be recognized as filling an indispensable 
place in Japan. 

In the spring of 1909, the year before his death, Dr. 
Davis was consulted by a secretary of one of the mission 
boards as to the wisdom of gradually closing their work 
or largely reinforcing it. His convictions were stated so 
clearly and backed up so strikingly with illustrations in the 
history of his own mission and the Doshisha, that the argu- 
ment for reinforcement seemed [conclusive. He wrote of 
this interview: — " I almost tremble to express my opinion 
on some things, lest it be given more weight than it de- 
serves. They seem to think that a man who has been in 
Japan nearly forty years ought to know everything, and 
be able to give sound advice on all points of mission policy. 
I cannot fill that bill, but have to do the best I can." In 
this connection it is of interest to note that within three 
years this Board had doubled its staff of missionaries in 
Japan and had planned a comprehensive scheme of expan- 
sion of its entire work. 

One of the busiest tours of the earlier period was in 
April, 1892, in the district west of Kyoto. " I left Kyoto 
Friday noon, and had travelled thirty miles by night. The 
next morning, starting at half-past five, I travelled sixty 
miles by jinricksha over the fine road that winds through 
the mountains and in and out along the sea-shore near 
Miyadzu. That evening we had a prayer-meeting. The 
next day, the Sabbath, I preached in the morning, five per- 
sons were baptized and the Lord's Supper was celebrated. 
One of those baptized was the eighth member to receive 
baptism of the family of the woman who was baptized a 
year ago, the keeper of a house of prostitution, who set free 
all the girls whom she had bought and who has lived a 
most happy life since. Dr. Gordon baptized twenty-five 
and Dr. Albrecht fifteen here, a year ago, so that there are 
now forty-five members. We had an evening service, with 



280 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

two sermons, and Monday evening the great theatre was 
packed with six hundred people, while three of us spoke. 

" Tuesday morning the pastor of the Miyazu church and 
I, started by rowboat along the coast and tramped up the 
mountain to Mineyama, fifteen miles, where we had a 
preaching service that evening. Next day we went on to 
Amino, five miles south, the home of the old lady who was 
converted while on the way to the Ise shrines and has 
given largely of her fortune to help build three churches. 
One of these was dedicated in her home town the evening 
we arrived. The rain poured, but the new church was 
packed, and a great crowd stood in the street, holding um- 
brellas over their heads, until eleven o'clock. After that we 
had a love feast of rice salad, raw fish and bean turn-overs 
and tea, until after midnight. The next morning two were 
baptized, one woman in the face of such great family op- 
position that many in the audience were moved to tears. 
In the evening another preaching service until eleven. 

" The next morning I started at five, rode twenty miles 
over mountain ranges in a fierce storm to find that the 
bridge across the Wachi river had just given way. ' Not a 
bridge or a ferry for thirty-five miles,' they said, ' and 
nothing to do, but to wait a few days till the river sub- 
sides so that a boat can cross.' I went down the river 
four miles to a remote ferry, but nothing would induce the 
men to cross. Five miles further down I found that the 
river shoaled out enough for poles to reach the bottom, 
and I finally induced some men to pole me over. I then 
had to walk over the mountains, twelve miles, to a jin- 
ricksha road, and reached Shuchi, thirty miles from home, 
at eight o'clock at night. I preached nine nights in suc- 
cession, with three communion services, and all the talking 
between times, was up until midnight nearly every night, 
lived on Japanese food, with heavy travel crowded into a 
rainy spell in which I did not see the sun for over a week, 



FIELDS WHITE TO THE HARVEST 281 

and then had the hard trip home, to find a pile of letters 
and accumulated work awaiting me. This has not left me 
very rested, but I wish some of those people who think 
that missionaries have too good a time, living in luxury, 
could have followed me around, eating, walking and sleep- 
ing as I did, nay, I rather wish that they had the love of 
Christ in their hearts, which makes this work easy and full 
of joy." 

Eighteen hundred and ninety-seven marked the high tide 
of his touring activity. In this year he made seven ex- 
tended trips, averaging nearly a month in length and ag- 
gregating almost ten thousand miles. February and March 
were spent in the southern island of Kyushiu and Shikoku, 
where in thirty-two days he spoke fifty-two times. Of 
Kyushiu he notes: — " It is a most hopeful field and needs 
workers who will go with a strong purpose to hold on and 
out." The opportunity and needs of the work in Shikoku 
so impressed him that, before leaving, he promised to re- 
turn in a month for further work. On his return from the 
South, however, a two weeks' attack of rheumatism and 
sciatica reminded him of what he was seldom allowed to 
forget from now on, that he was growing old and could 
not endure hardships without paying the price. The sec- 
ond Shikoku tour lasted another month, and proved one of 
the most fruitful that he had ever attempted. 

Not all of his tours were conducted under such pleasant 
conditions as these to southern Japan. In November, 1902, 
he had started upon a week's trip into the interior, when 
a tooth began to trouble him. " I could not sleep that 
night and went to a dentist, who tried to kill the nerve, 
but only made it worse. I went on to Arayube and spoke 
that night, but Sunday morning determined to have the 
unruly tooth removed, as I could eat nothing and it 
pained continuously. After drinking some milk and preach- 
ing at ten, I went to the doctor. He wrenched and twisted 



282 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

for a time, but his forceps slipped and knocked out two of 
my remaining front teeth. Both jaws were so bruised that 
I could take no solid food for five days. I talked to some 
soldiers that afternoon in the barracks for an hour, and 
preached in the evening, and feared I should have to go 
home, but being no worse the next morning and having 
come so far, and with speaking announcements out in three 
other places, I decided to continue the trip." Under these 
conditions he had spoken seven consecutive nights, in as 
many towns, widely separated by mountain ranges, with 
day meetings interspersed, yet he could reach home saying 
that he was not especially tired, and take up the accumu- 
lated work of committee meetings, teaching, conferences, 
and writing, without even the respite of a half day. 

Dr. Davis was privileged to witness in increasingly 
fruitful evangelistic work until past three-score years and 
ten. His last tours were, from the standpoint of rich re- 
sults, among the most blessed of his life. The travelling 
was accomplished each year with increasing difficulty, with 
colds and bronchitis and, finally, arterial trouble, but while 
the physical force was perceptibly waning, the inner fires 
glowed with undiminished intensity. At an age when it is 
natural to enjoy the comforts of home and of a quiet life, 
his soul burned with an increasing passion to glean men for 
his Master from the wide harvest field. 

His last evangelistic tour was taken in the winter of 
1910, at the request of the Kyoto District Conference. In 
company with Pastor Makino, he spent eight days in the 
region of Maizuru, on the west coast, speaking fourteen 
times to bands of Christians and enquirers. He says: " I 
went under Mr. Makino's wing, and I believe this marks a 
beginning of such cooperation, with our Japanese brethren 
as the leaders, which will be more fruitful in blessed results 
than any work we have hitherto done." These words of 
the veteran evangelist, spoken so shortly before his death, 



FIELDS WHITE TO THE HARVEST 283 

are prophetic of the new era of cooperative evangelism 
which has characterized the work of the Kumi-ai churches 
and the Congregational missionaries. 

Only once during the thirty-nine years of Dr. Davis' 
life in Japan was a serious attempt made to disturb a 
meeting or interfere with his speaking. The theatre where 
he and his associates were advertised to speak in the old 
castle town of Kikone, upon the shores of Lake Biwa, was 
nearly filled by a company of Buddhist priests and their 
followers, who evidently intended to break up the meeting. 
" It was only by the hardest effort that Messrs. Ebina and 
Kanoko finished their addresses. When I went onto the 
platform they shouted ' Ketojin' (a hairy foreigner). I 
made a polite bow and told them that I always liked to 
talk to young men and that I hoped I could help them, 
that all young men wanted to succeed in life and that I 
would tell them some of the elements of success. First, a 
great aim, in harmony with heaven, with conscience and 
with men; second, a great Master, one who has power to 
save, to make us better men and to give us self-control 
and to be an example for our faith and conduct. Now, 
every faithful disciple strives to imitate the spirit and 
conduct of his master; thus we may compare masters by 
comparing the conduct and spirit of the disciples. I come 
to you, tonight, in the spirit and following the example of 
Christ, who endeavoured to save all men through his holy, 
kind and noble life; I take it that you followers of Buddha 
also come in the spirit of your master, but if so, you are 
representing a very unworthy master by the conduct you 
have maintained in this meeting." Before the speaker had 
progressed far in this pointed argument, heads began to 
hang in shame, and, as he continued, one after another 
of the disturbers silently rose and left the hall, until scarcely 
one remained. Later several of these same men became 
earnest Christians. 



Chapter XIX 
PERSONAL EVANGELISM 

THOUGH for more than thirty years Dr. Davis was 
a familiar figure in the Doshisha class room it is the 
influence of the man and not the teacher that re- 
mains among his students. His interest in his pupils was 
too genuine to be satisfied with a formal relationship. For 
many years he was accustomed to pray, daily, for every 
member of his classes and knew each man by name. Their 
life stories were familiar to him; their struggles for an edu- 
cation, their sorrows, their temptations, their doubts and 
their victories were a part of his life. He seemed to keep 
the right perspective, never forgetting that he was in 
Japan to bring spiritual and moral power to individuals as 
well as to the community. There was something in the 
foreign teacher that invited the confidence of the students. 
One of the Kumamoto Band, Rev. D. Ebina of Tokyo, has 
said: "It was Dr. Davis to whom the students of the early 
Doshisha looked up. It was he that attracted and led the 
promising youths of those days. The vestige of a brave 
soldier still lingered about his brow, — a manly man, of 
firm mind, still young, under forty." 

His home for thirty-five years was open to the students. 
They came to him as naturally as to a Japanese; they 
came as sons to a father, as boys to an elder brother, sure 
of sound advice, of sympathy and of spiritual uplift. Those 
in whom he was specially interested he would occasionally 
invite to supper for special consultation in his study. Not 
only did the students of the pioneer school frequent the 
home of the vigorous young missionary, but, thirty years 
later, the boys of the modern Doshisha and government 

284 



PERSONAL EVANGELISM 285 

schools were still drawn to the veteran teacher. Indeed 
this personal work increased with the years, as his teaching 
schedule decreased. 

His letters to his family constantly describe individuals 
whom he was helping in various ways. " Last evening 
we had two students to supper. Today, a young man of 
the third year class came to say ' Goodbye.' He lives in 
Yamada, the bigotted Shinto town where the great central 
shrine is located. He has become a Christian here, but his 
family are all unbelievers. His health has failed and he goes 
home to rest. He is one of a little company of classmates 
who have come to me several times for spiritual help. He 
said that he had only been an intellectual Christian before, 
but that I had helped him to lay hold on a personal Sav- 
iour and he wanted to thank me and to get some more 
advice before he should go to his home. This is one of the 
experiences which makes life not only worth living, but 
rich. It is a rare pleasure to assist a man toward the light 
and to see the soul light up right under your eyes." 

A Kyushiu judge, led by the letters of his son, a student 
in America, to decide for Christ, travelled five hundred 
miles to be baptized by Dr. Davis on Mt. Hiei. During 
a vacation in 1900, thirty-six different individuals, students, 
pastors and teachers, climbed the mountain to his camp for 
spiritual or practical advice. Escaping to a temple retreat 
on Lake Hakone, three hundred miles northeast, in an 
effort to rest, still groups of students and others found him 
and laid their burdens upon his heart. In despair of find- 
ing a secluded place to rest, he remarked: — "I suppose, 
if I should spend the summer on the summit of Mt. Fuji 
they would follow up there." 

From 1906 on, groups of government school students were 
in the habit of coming to Dr. Davis' home for regular 
meetings of consecration and prayer, and toward the close 
of his life he was sought more and more for this intimate, 



286 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

inspirational contact. February 4th, 1906: — "The stu- 
dents from the University and Higher Middle School came 
in for a consecration meeting at two o'clock and asked me 
to speak to them of the way to receive the Holy Spirit, 
and then of the meaning of the church and the reasons of 
its necessity for Christians. . . . This morning I speak at 
the communion service in the Rakyo church, and this after- 
noon the students from the University are coming again. 
They are coming once a month, and as this is my night at 
home for Doshisha students they will come Monday even- 
ing instead, this week. The Theological students come 
Friday evening after prayer-meeting to ask questions. 
I declined a pressing invitation to speak at an alumni 
meeting at Osaka last evening, much as I wanted to go, 
feeling that I had too important work on hand today to 
allow it." 

The next year, he was asked to take charge of a new 
center of student work which the Doshisha opened in the 
university district, east of the river. Of a Sabbath, he 
wrote: " I preached today at the Doshisha, in the morn- 
ing, and at the ' Airinsha ' in the evening. Four sets of 
Normal School students came in during the afternoon to 
inquire about Christianity. I noted some of their ques- 
tions: What is the chief end of man? What is the true 
basis of morals? What becomes of those who die impeni- 
tent? How are we to escape from our daily sins? Can 
any be saved who know not Christ? Tell me all about 
Christianity; I have heard almost nothing about it. Such 
questionnaires keep one fairly busy." 

Dr. Davis' knowledge of the Doshisha and its students 
was intimate; for a generation his finger was on the pulse 
of the school, quick to detect the slightest variation in its 
spiritual, physical or social health, and if his letters and 
conversation regarding the Doshisha were often filled with 
anxieties and prophecies of disaster, it was because he loved 



PERSONAL EVANGELISM 287 

it with the love of a parent and could not endure the en- 
trance of tendencies which might retard its greatest good. 
That every individual student should have Jesus Christ 
enthroned in his heart as Saviour and Lord seemed to 
him none too lofty an ambition for the Doshisha, and it 
was this that he constantly held up before his classes and 
associates. How nearly the school of the first years came 
to fulfilling this high ideal, the records of those years 
witness. In 1889, " We have at the end of the school year 
about eight hundred and eighty students in our schools; 
five hundred and twelve are Christians and one hundred 
and sixty-five were baptized during the year. There are 
three among the twenty-five graduates who are not Christians. 
In the thirteen years since the school began we have grad- 
uated only four or five other men who were not Christians." 
It was to be expected that Dr. Davis would warmly 
welcome efforts of visiting evangelists in the Doshisha. 
During Mr. Wishard's visit in February, 1889, he wrote, 
11 This has been a very busy and precious day. The 
work of Mr. Wishard and Mr. Swift has been greatly 
blessed. The whole school is aroused. There has been no 
excitement, but nearly all the Christians in the school are 
stirred to do personal work. February 7th: The work 
still goes on; meetings in the early evening each day and 
our house open every afternoon, from one till five, for in- 
quirers who wish to come and meet Messrs. Wishard and 
Swift. Forty-two were packed into our sitting-room yester- 
day, and we had every room downstairs but the kitchen 
full of students, and Fannie received her callers in the 
kitchen. It really seems like old times to have a home 
used again in this way. We are working and praying that 
the three hundred and sixty non-Christian students will be 
led to Christ. We are planning to start the Young Men's 
Christian Association with the Doshisha as a center, mak- 
ing of these organizations Gideon's Bands, whose members 



288 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

pledge themselves to take as their life aim, leading souls 
to Christ. We want Christians who will each mean a 
thousand souls. Unless Christians, generally, awaken and 
work, they will not keep pace with the increasing popula- 
tion of the whole globe." 

Dr. Davis considered that John R. Mott had been 
raised of God to meet a special crisis in the Japanese 
Christian movement. Ever since the meeting of the Na- 
tional Committee of the Young Men's Christian Associa- 
tion, in 1896, in which he had seen Mr. Mott fight for a 
long day for the evangelical basis of the Union, his admira- 
tion for the man was profound. Of his meetings in the 
Doshisha, he wrote, in October, 1901: " It was an inspira- 
tion to see and hear Mr. Mott and to witness these large 
results in our school. He preaches the old Gospel, which is, 
and always has been, the power of God unto salvation, — 
sin, repentance, faith in a divine Christ and His atonement, 
and acceptance of the living Christ through the Holy 
Spirit. He speaks in clear-cut, short sentences, each like 
a hot shot, and his translator put these sentences into 
Japanese in the same way, so that the result was very ef- 
fective. All the Christian workers in the city are organ- 
ized to look after these enquirers and lead them into the 
Christian life. I realize that there can be no more impor- 
tant work than this." 

His personal ministries were not confined to the student 
class of his city. He kept up, for various periods, Bible 
and English classes for policemen, city officials and other 
groups of citizens, in which he was assisted by his wife, and 
by these means their circle of friends was constantly en- 
larging. Of one of these groups he wrote: — "I have 
promised to meet some of the officials of the city one eve- 
ning in the week to teach them English. Their object is to 
get English; mine is to make friends of them and try to 
interest them in Christ." 



PERSONAL EVANGELISM 289 

Those who came to him for help represented nearly every 
profession. " Yesterday, I had no preaching in public, but 
a judge came in the afternoon to talk about Christianity. . . . 
He says that his duties show him how very weak and sick 
at heart man is, and that he needs super-human help, but 
that he is troubled about the miracles of Christ. I talked 
with him an hour and a half and I never found a man who 
seemed more ready to drink in the truth. I gave him some 
books and he promised to come again. ... A physician 
in the city who has practised medicine fifteen years came 
in the other evening, saying that he was so troubled about 
his sins that he could not rest. His confessions were a 
revelation of the immorality of such men. He has come 
three times and we have talked and prayed together. It 
is good that we have a divine Redeemer to whom we may 
lead such sinful men." 

Particularly in the early days, before the country had 
been geared up to the rapidly moving machinery of western 
life, it required a fund of patience and grace to deal with 
the deliberate individuals who came to the missionary, pro- 
fessing to be enquirers after truth, but obviously seeking 
to satisfy their curiosity. One eccentric and cold-blooded 
scholar of Chinese, famous among the missionary children 
for wearing thirteen suits of clothes at the same time, one 
winter made frequent visits upon the Davis household, 
usually timing his call to coincide with the family supper 
hour. One evening he was invited to stay to supper. Not 
fancying the porridge and milk and being compelled by 
Japanese etiquette to leave nothing upon his plate, he 
solved the dilemma by slipping the contents of his por- 
ridge bowl into a capacious sleeve, where it remained until 
his departure an hour later. In this case, patience was 
rewarded by the man's ultimate conversion. 

Another man, an ex-Shinto priest, who through a lengthy 
correspondence professed to be an earnest seeker, finally 



290 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

made a call upon Dr. Davis with the request that he ex- 
plain for him the theory of total abstinence. After he had 
talked with the man for some time upon the value of tem- 
perance, his guest thanked him, took off his outer garment, 
and to Dr. Davis' astonishment requested him to write 
a statement of his temperance principles upon the inner 
lining. The inside of the robe was covered with inscrip- 
tions in several languages, representing the philosophy and 
teaching of various sages, which the owner hoped to absorb 
by wearing upon his back. 

It was to be expected that demands upon his sympathy 
and financial resources would be large, but to what extent 
he responded not even his intimate friends knew. Among 
his files are letters from individuals of every description, 
seeking help, and thanking him for aid. Indigent evange- 
lists, with large families to support, sick students, ex- 
students out of work, pastors unable to live upon the 
irregular support of their churches, and stranded American 
sailors and " beach combers," are among those whom he 
helped. But for every such recorded act, there must have 
been many of which no one ever knew. This ability to 
respond was a wonder to his friends. The secret is found 
in the self-denials of his thirty-nine years in Japan. 

A neighbor says of him: — "His readiness to give was 
often abused and I imagine that the money he lent to 
needy students, which was never returned, must have 
amounted to a large sum. It was hard for him to refuse 
help, but he did so in one case. A man came, one day, 
asking for money to help him back to Nagoya, where he 
knew a missionary for whom he had once worked. In 
proof of the statement, he produced a letter in the Japa- 
nese grass character which Dr. Davis could not read. He 
was about to help him, when his teacher came in and was 
asked to read the letter. He did so and asked the man if 
his name was ' Yes,' was the reply. ' Well,' said the 



PERSONAL EVANGELISM 291 

teacher, ' This letter says that has just died and 

asks for a contribution for the funeral expenses.' The man, 
unabashed, explained that his friends had previously tried 
to raise funds for him in that way, and, by mistake, he had 
shown the wrong paper. I can almost hear Dr. Davis' 
hearty laugh as he told the story and added, ' That is the 
first time I ever had a corpse ask me to help bury it, but 
I drew the line there and refused to give money to a dead 
man. 

It was as natural for him to witness to his divine Lord 
wherever the vicissitudes of the work led him, as when men 
came to his study for special help. Sometimes it was the 
jinricksha runner, who toiled with him over steep mountain 
passes; again, the woodcutter carrying his blanket and char- 
coal on some winter excursion. The fellow passenger on 
boat or train, or the farmer overtaken on the highway, 
often heard from the kindly foreigner the story of a new 
hope and a new power in Christ. In the darkest moments 
of reaction, when it seemed to him as if many were losing 
their grip upon the divine Christ, he would turn to work 
for such simple-hearted souls, with a prayer of thanksgiv- 
ing on his heart that Christ's power to save was constant 
and could reach men of every social and intellectual stratum. 
It proved his favorite theory that the common man in 
Japan could be reached by the Gospel. 

One result of his country evangelism was that farmers 
from the deep interior, when in Kyoto, called to thank him 
or to ask for further advice and help. In April, 1887, he 
wrote: — "I had a call from five or six men and women 
the other day, from north of Tamba, about fifty miles 
away. One of them is a mother, who was led to examine 
Christianity through the conversion of her son, who had 
been a very wicked prodigal. She saw such a great change 
in him after his conversion that she felt there must be a 
power in Christianity of which she was ignorant. Another 



292 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

of the company, about fifty years old, had started on the 
pilgrim circuit of the Island of Shikoku, visiting all the 
shrines, when she heard of Christianity and decided to seek 
Christ instead." 

The same letter told of the baptism of the former 
Daimio of Sanda and his entrance into the Kobe Church. 
It was especially appropriate that Dr. Davis, who had first 
introduced this man to Christianity, should assist in receiv- 
ing him into the Church. This ex-lord had been a seeker 
for fourteen years, being preceded in his acceptance of 
Christ by a brother and other members of his family. 

" November 30th, 1890, Dear Children: — A student who 
has been here four years and who, from ill health, is now 
compelled to leave school, probably never to come back, 
came to bid me, ' Goodbye.' He first asked if I had an 
extra English Bible that he could have; an old one would 
do. I told him we had only those we were using, but I 
gave him a copy of Smith's Bible Dictionary. He was very 
grateful, and told me why he wanted one of my books. 
He said that months ago, he had a very vivid dream. 
He was walking in the city and saw a man standing on a 
large stone, with a Bible in one hand and pointing with 
the other to heaven. He drew nearer and the man was 
myself and then as he looked, the man was Christ. He 
said, ' Every time I think of you, I think of Christ, and I 
want some book you have used, so that each time I see the 
book I shall think of you and of Christ.' This has made 
me feel very humble, because I come so far short of being 
such a pattern, and yet men must look at us all as patterns 
of Him, more or less. If we could only live so that all who 
see us would look from us up to Christ, how blessed it 
would be." 



Chapter XX 
THE ALL-AROUND MISSIONARY 

TO one who believes in divine influence in the lives of 
men, there is evidence of an economy of creation and 
an interplay of forces in the history of individu- 
als as well as of nations. The saying, "It takes God a 
thousand years to make a man," becomes, upon analysis, 
one of the most undeniable of truths. It was no accident 
that Dr. Davis came from a mixture of pioneer and mili- 
tary stock; that the bark of his boyhood fortunes was 
tossed on difficult seas; that he made an early consecra- 
tion of his life to God; that he took an active part in the 
great American Conflict and that he went as a missionary 
to the Far East. If the Kingdom of God was to be 
planted in modern Japan in competition with the adverse 
influences of Western civilization, men of this ancestry and 
calibre were needed. 

The early missionaries represented more than the socie- 
ties that sent them and more than the churches and 
colleges that had nurtured them, as they landed upon the 
shores of Japan fifty years ago. These first missionaries 
were ambassadors of the best traditions of the Anglo-Saxon 
race; products of that sturdy spirit of Puritanism that 
willingly sacrificed all for conscience's sake and had opened 
a continent to Christian civilization and Anglo-Saxon cul- 
ture. 

After two hundred and fifty years of pioneering in North 
America, this fund of energy and experience was not to 
be lost, but was to be applied in new fields; the gift of the 
youthful West to the ancient, expectant East. Dr. Davis 
and his forefathers had, as pioneers, helped to open four 

293 



294 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

states to the Union; he was now to pioneer in an imperial 
nation. He and his ancestors had taken part in four wars 
for his country; he was now to take part in a yet greater 
war for a nation of which his fathers knew nothing, but 
whose achievements were to stir the world and whose 
future influence in history no man can foretell. 

Dr. Davis was endowed with a fund of resourcefulness, 
which went far toward making him an all-around mission- 
ary. He was seldom caught in a situation to which he 
could not adapt himself or turn to his advantage or to that 
of the work. This trait was especially shown in the early 
years, and was a source of surprise to the Japanese and of 
appreciation to his colleagues. He came to Japan equipped 
with the tools for constructing his house and for making 
his own furniture and implements. His actual experience 
in these things was of great value in building his own 
houses in Kyoto and in supervising the construction of 
many of the Doshisha buildings and mission houses in his 
station. 

He had an aptitude for building and for getting satisfac- 
tory results out of the Japanese workmen. He took off his 
coat and got down into the trenches with the masons, 
showed them how to make mortar, superintended the dry- 
ing of the timber, climbed over the building from cellar to 
cornice, watching, correcting, detecting errors and short 
measure, devising the solution of engineering difficulties 
and teaching labor-saving devices of American construction. 
More than one of the best builders in the Kyoto district 
have attributed their start in foreign construction to Dr. 
Davis. In the early years the negotiation for land and 
buildings required an inordinate amount of time, patience 
and perseverance. As he described it, " In securing land 
for buildings we can do nothing directly, but have to work 
through the Japanese, which is much like working on the 
short end of a compound system of levers." 



THE ALL-AROUND MISSIONARY 295 

The oriental propensity for not keeping to time greatly 
tried his punctual nature and was one of the elements of 
life in Japan which wore on him unduly. Eventually, he 
devised a plan for holding contractors to their agreements, 
which is in general use today. A reasonable time limit was 
fixed upon, and for every day by which this period was 
shortened the contractor received a bonus of ten yen, while 
for each day by which the work dragged beyond the time 
limit, the contractor had to pay a similar sum as a fine to 
the supervising missionary. The first contractor who 
entered into this agreement, not fully realizing that he 
would be rigidly held to the conditions, was badly caught. 
He bided his time, however, and receiving the contract for 
a second building, pushed the work so rapidly that Dr. 
Davis was forced to pay him a bonus of yen 120. Dr. 
Davis was delighted at this outcome, which he said " is 
worth the amount of the bonus many times over, for that 
is one thing I am here for." 

He was often called in for consultation about the Dosh- 
isha buildings and grounds. In the spring of 1887, the 
coolies who were employed to stretch the band wire upon 
the new campus fence failed to put the required energy 
into the work. They were dismissed and Dr. Davis under- 
took the job. ".I stretched every strand of wire for the 
fifteen hundred feet of fence, myself. I was pretty busy 
before this and it took all my spare time, but a few days 
settled it." When the kerosene lamps in one of the build- 
ings got out of order, he took them down and worked 
over them until they were almost as good as new, and 
when the chimney in the Theological hall refused to draw, 
he worked with the men until the defects were remedied. 

In the middle of his summer rest, in 1887, he went down 
from the mountain camp to oversee the erection of the 
American clock that had arrived for the Recitation hall 
tower. " It is a large one with a three hundred pound 



296 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

striking weight. With two of the best clock men in the 
city, I unpacked it. It was all in pieces and no directions 
with it. We worked until sundown to get the running 
gear together, and I have been at work ever since putting 
it up. We have to get the one hundred foot fall for the 
striking weight by a series of compound pulleys. I put 
these pulleys in the top of the tower, fifty feet from the 
ground, put the clock works in the second storey, the bell 
in the third storey, and the hands and face in the fourth 
storey, and have to plan for all these connection rods for 
which the clock was not originally built. Whether it will 
run after being put up by a novice without directions re- 
mains to be seen. I protested to the station against under- 
taking it, but they would not let me off. Wednesday, 
September 4th. Another full day of thirteen hours at the 
clock. It is all ready except putting on the hands and 
weights and connecting the striking lever with the bell. 
September 18th. The clock is working all right. I can 
hear it strike very plainly over here in my study." 

Twenty years later, when an old man, he wrote of the 
same clock: " The last days have been busy with the over- 
sight of getting the new bell placed in the clock tower. . . . 
Raising the heavy bell up to the third storey of the tower 
and hanging it was no small job with our appliances. The 
arrangements for the tolling lever were easy, but the adjust- 
ment of the clock strike was very complicated. The new 
bell is too large to use with the old hammer, so I had to 
make a new one with a bent bar, working on a pivot so 
that it would clear the bell. Three days of hard work 
got the whole thing into running order." 

Dr. Davis believed in the gospel of hard work. Here 
his lifelong example made a vivid impression upon the 
Japanese. In the early days of the mission, some of his 
colleagues protested against his appearing upon the streets 
in his shirt-sleeves, wheeling a barrow, or carrying tools in 



THE ALL-AROUND MISSIONARY 297 

his arms to the blacksmith's shop. They believed that such 
democratic conduct would give a wrong impression to the 
Japanese of the social status and culture of the American 
missionary. He compromised by putting on his coat in 
public, but never gave in upon the principle of the value of 
the example of labor. 

He was public spirited and willing to do his full share for 
advancing community interests. As the founder of the 
summer camp upon Mt. Hiei, he maintained a feeling of 
solicitude for all who used that retreat. It was his cus- 
tom each spring after the frost was out of the ground, to 
climb the mountain with a carpenter and place the water- 
works of the camp in repair. Rotted bamboo pipes were 
renewed, joints made secure and the reservoir cleaned out. 
Changes or extensions in camp sites, too, were negotiated 
by him. When the Christian cemetery needed attention, 
Dr. Davis usually knew it and saw that fences and gates 
were repaired and the graves properly cared for. Here, as 
with the Doshisha, he acted upon his favorite axiom: 
" When you want a thing done, do it yourself," and relates 
of repairing the cemetery wall, "It is a mud wall with a 
tile roof. The tiles had fallen off in places and the wall was 
being washed down. I drilled holes in one hundred and 
sixty tiles and wired them on, working with the drill for 
five hours. It is all fixed now, however, and ought to 
stand for twenty years." 

In the summer of 1900, at Hakone Lake, he constructed 
a mill for making graham flour from the raw wheat. After 
describing how he had turned miller, he says: — "Then I 
bought some yellow Indian corn and pounded it, as the 
Indians do, between two stones, and made some ' Samf,' 
which is the nicest hominy I ever ate." His abilities as a 
cook were proverbial among his intimate friends and he 
was fond of occasionally getting into the camp kitchen and 
turning out " flap jacks," " sikus singles," and " rogues' 



298 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

stews," whose mere mention used to make the children's 
mouths water in anticipation. Yet there never was a man 
who thought less of what he ate, or who was less fastidious 
than he. His long military training had inured him to fru- 
gal living and had made him an advocate of " the gospel 
of plain living and high thinking." 

The summer tenting upon the mountain delighted the 
old soldier, who was an adept at camping out. To our 
childish imagination he could fasten a tent more securely 
than any one else. I well remember my boyish pride on 
finding, the morning after a great typhoon, that my father's 
tents were the only ones of the encampment that had not 
suffered serious damage, and my respect for his mechanical 
genius on seeing him construct a rude triangulating outfit 
by which he estimated the height of neighboring summits 
in the mountains. 

His was a varied and multiple activity through the first 
twenty years of the Doshisha's life. In addition to his 
regular schedule of teaching and evangelistic work, he bore 
an increasing load of allied and divergent responsibilities. 
Committees relating to the school, to evangelistic work 
and church and mission development, found him a willing 
member. In 1900 we find this note: " I can sympathize 
with Lowell, who, when in London, wrote: — ' I am piece- 
mealed here with so many things to do that I cannot get a 
moment to brood over anything as it must be brooded over 
if it is to have wings. It is as if a setting hen should have 
to mind the doorbell.' " The next year: — " I am on so 
many committees that some weeks I have a committee 
meeting every day." 

The years that he was at the head of the Theological 
school, the consultation and correspondence with students 
fell to him, while during the long period when the Dosh- 
isha question was under discussion, the vital issues involved, 
which interested not only Doshisha students and graduates, 



THE ALL-AROUND MISSIONARY 299 

but the whole Kumi-ai body, as well as other missions and 
churches, brought a steady stream of inquiry to his door. 
In May, 1899, he wrote: — "I was to be at Hikone last 
Sabbath to preach, but my back was so lame that I decided 
to rest. The trouble is that I have not had enough exer- 
cise the last three months, and too much strain of consulta- 
tion, sometimes as high as eight hours a day, upon this 
one, old, sore subject, the Doshisha." 

In addition to his regular preaching, there were frequent 
calls for public addresses. Though some of his closest 
colleagues insisted to the contrary, he was not generally 
considered an eloquent speaker. Dr. D. L. Learned, in 
speaking of his use of Japanese, said: — " It was always a 
wonder to me that he could do so much in the language 
without a more perfect command of it, but he seemed to be a 
master of Japanese in the sense of making it do what he 
pleased. When he was prepared (too often he had to 
speak without time for preparation), or when he was deeply 
moved, he seemed to me one of the very strongest speakers 
in the mission." His Japanese vocabulary was compara- 
tively limited, and would not have passed the modern tests 
of proficiency. However, he made a surprisingly effective 
use of the vocabulary at his command, and if measured by 
the results effected, he must be rated an efficient speaker. 
His style was marked by intense earnestness, simplicity 
and clarity of thought and a lighting up of the whole per- 
sonality with an animation and fire which compelled atten- 
tion and seldom failed to carry his audience. 

He was much in demand for commencement addresses, 
for the dedication of churches, the ordination of pastors 
and for summer schools and conventions. One address for 
which he was famous among the Japanese and which he 
never tired of giving was his " War Talk," in which he 
related, in his vivid way, some of the most characteristic 
experiences of the Civil War. In many cases it was used 



300 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

as the entering wedge for evangelistic appeal, when he would 
press home the claims of loyalty to duty and high ideals 
in the face of difficulties. The reason for these public de- 
mands upon him are apparent in the breadth of his inter- 
ests, the depth of his sympathies, the strength of his friend- 
ships and the faithfulness and sincerity of his services. 

One characteristic that gave Dr. Davis much pleasure 
was his ability to attract young men. His appeal to the 
imagination and heart of the young was not limited to the 
period when as an impetuous and " knightly leader,' ' he 
charmed the Kumamoto Band; it remained to the very end 
of his life. Young men of various classes and nationalities 
came freely to his study for consultation and sympathy. 
Frequent demands from many parts of the country were 
made upon him for addresses to young people, until he was 
full threescore years and ten. He was essentially a man's 
man, direct, rugged, natural and absolutely fearless of 
everything but shame and dishonesty. He glowed with 
youthful enthusiasms and mighty convictions; he poured 
out the sympathy of his big heart to those who sought him; 
he was built upon a large pattern, with honor, generosity 
and genuineness deep graven upon his personality. 

Upon his last return to Japan, in 1906, contrary to his 
expectations, he was more than ever in demand for work 
for young men. " More calls for work come than I dare 
accept," he wrote soon after his return; " I am asked to 
preach the Baccalaureate sermon for the graduation of all 
departments of the Doshisha and at the Communion serv- 
ice. I have had to decline to go to Tamba that same 
Sabbath. Mr. Osada has asked me to make the graduating 
address at the Osaka Girls' School, the same week. To- 
night, Mr. Niwa asked me to preach in the Doshisha next 
Sabbath, but as I am to speak in the Airin Church that 
evening and have to meet the University and Higher 
Middle School students in the afternoon, I have declined 



THE ALL-AROUND MISSIONARY 301 

to do more. The trouble is that such work is sprung on 
one with little or no time for preparation. One is expected 
to have everything that is wanted ' right on tap.' " 

Dr. Davis was for many years chairman of the Board of 
Directors of Kobe College, and from its beginning had 
furthered its growth in every possible way. In 1903, he 
referred to this school as the best piece of work that the 
mission had accomplished in its thirty-three years in Japan. 
He was one of the first, also, to advocate the opening of 
the Hospital and Training School for Nurses which was 
organized in connection with the Doshisha, and he served 
as a consulting member upon its board. 

He believed that the Young Men's Christian Association 
had been called to render a unique service for the empire. 
For years he served on the committee of the National 
Y. M. C. A. Union, and he took the liveliest interest 
in the development of the association in mission and gov- 
ernment schools and in its spread to the city work. He 
early saw the need of a city association building in Kyoto, 
as a common center for united Christian effort and as a 
direct means of reaching the city people. He suggested to 
Mr. Mott the sending of a foreign secretary to take charge of 
the Kyoto work, organized the petition from the pastors, 
missionaries and leading laymen in Kyoto for such a secre- 
tary, and, finally, upon his arrival welcomed him so warmly 
and gave so much time in planning for the new work that 
an unusual bond was established between the two men. 
From its organization until his death, he continued a direc- 
tor of the Kyoto City Association, and was never too busy 
to attend its meetings or to throw himself into its varied 
problems and activities. 

Mr. Mott relied upon the judgment of Dr. Davis in the 
problems of the National work. At the historic Tokyo con- 
ference in 1897, in which the evangelical basis of the Japa- 
nese movement was seriously threatened, Dr. Davis was 



302 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

present, and though he took no part in the discussion > 
prayed most earnestly through the long hours of discussion. 
His influence was pregnant with power that day to save 
the movement to evangelical Christianity. Many times he 
endured serious discomforts in order to attend meetings of 
the National Committee, not infrequently making the three 
hundred mile journey to the North primarily on that 
account. One member of the committee has said: — "I 
remember how one summer the meeting was held at Hay- 
ama, with the thermometer nearing 100°, muggy and sultry. 
We had poor Japanese food, fleas abounded, and the whole 
surroundings were depressing, especially to a foreigner, but 
Dr. Davis never uttered a complaint. His attitude at these 
committee meetings was strikingly reserved; he rarely 
spoke unless his opinion was asked, or unless some vital 
principle was at stake. He always demurred against taking 
a prominent part, believing that some younger or, as he 
thought, some abler man, should be called upon, but 
when he did speak it was with trumpet-toned convic- 
tion." 

With much the same spirit that he showed toward the 
Young Men's Christian Association he welcomed the Sal- 
vation Army, and frequently expressed his confidence in 
the large work awaiting it in Japan. The officers of the 
Army, when working in Kyoto or passing through the city, 
were welcome guests in his home. Colonel Gumpei Yama- 
muro, of the Salvation Army, describes the part that Dr. 
Davis took in his decision for life-work: " When I left the 
Imabara Church as a helper, I decided to devote myself to 
the evangelization of the common people, and went to 
Kyoto and asked Dr. Davis' advice about entering the 
Salvation Army. He said : ' A man led by the Spirit of 
God can succeed in the Salvation Army or anywhere else; 
the place where one works is not so important as the spirit 
with which one works.' He greatly honored the Salvation 



THE ALL-AROUND MISSIONARY 303 

Army. Soon after I went to Tokyo and enlisted in the 
Army." 

Through his friend and early colleague, Rev. O. H. 
Gulick, of Honolulu, he kept in close touch with the spiri- 
tual needs of the Japanese population in Hawaii, and for 
four years, from 1900 to 1903, he acted as consulting secre- 
tary for the Hawaiian Mission Board, finding Japanese 
pastors for its work and sending them to the field. 

During the summer of 1887, the Spanish Government 
took possession of the Caroline Islands and arbitrarily 
arrested Rev. E. T. Doane, a missionary of the American 
Board, whose well established work on the Island of Ponape 
had excited the envy of the Spanish priests. Mr. Doane, 
who was a brother-in-law of Dr. Davis, was sent in irons to 
Manila. On receipt of the news, Dr. Davis immediately 
made preparations for going to Manila to help Mr. Doane. 
On the way down the mountain, he was met with a tele- 
gram, stating that Mr. Doane had been released and was 
being sent back to Ponape, honorably acquitted by the 
Spanish Government. 

Dr. Davis had grave anxieties for the safety of the 
American Board's work in Micronesia and wrote to United 
States Minister Hubbard and to Rear Admiral Chandler 
of the American squadron, at that time in Japanese waters, 
calling their attention to the danger confronting American 
interests in the Caroline Islands, and urging that a war- 
ship be at once despatched to the scene of disturbance. 
Since the natives had risen against the tyranny of their new 
rulers and had wiped out the Spanish garrison stationed on 
Ponape, there was danger of bloody reprisals and the con- 
fiscation of mission property and the breaking up of that 
work. Through this prompt action, the U. S. S. " Essex" 
was sent to Ponape and arrived in time to prevent serious 
disaster in the islands. 

The adoption of the Red Cross by Japan in 1886 was 



304 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 



noted with the liveliest interest by Dr. Davis. He was 
an admirer of the founder of the organization, Miss Clara 
Barton, and had watched with satisfaction the growth of 
the Red Cross movement since the close of the Civil War. 
He deprecated the tardy adoption of the International Red 
Cross Treaty by the United States and the failure of Con- 
gress to protect the insignia of the society. When in 
Washington, in the summer of 1894, he called upon Miss 
Barton to express his appreciation of her work and to 
study the organization of the movement. At this time a 
bill, providing government protection for the insignia of the 
Red Cross, was pending congressional action and, at Miss 
Barton's request, Dr. Davis wrote an article on its behalf 
in " The Independent " of February 14th, 1895. The Red 
Cross Society printed and distributed five thousand copies of 
the article among congressmen, senators, politicians and 
publicists throughout the country. This plea for the recog- 
nition of the Red Cross is among the strongest products 
of Dr. Davis' pen. It not only won Miss Barton's grati- 
tude for a service which she characterized as " entirely 
priceless to the Red Cross cause," but contributed to the 
passing of a later measure which gave full recognition and 
protection to the Red Cross Society, in the United States. 

No summary of Dr. Davis' work as a missionary would 
be complete without mention of the literary activity with 
which he was occupied, whenever the press of school and 
outside work allowed. It was mostly accomplished in con- 
nection with his teaching, growing out of his class-room 
work or supplementing his evangelistic activity. His friends 
often remarked on the fact that a man of his active tem- 
perament had the patience and found the time to write to 
the extent that he did. The " Mission News " of Decem- 
ber 15th, 1910, says of him: — "He was a prolific writer 
and his literary activity during the past decade was notice- 
able. No other member of the mission has written as 



THE ALL-AROUND MISSIONARY 305 

many books, tracts, and articles calculated to exert a direct 
evangelistic influence, and no one, except Dr. Learned, be- 
longs in the same productive class. ... As an author he 
exerted a powerful influence." 

The first evangelistic tract published by the mission and 
the first original tract appearing in Japan, the " Chika 
Michi," or " The short way of knowing the true God," 
came from his pen during his third year in Japan. It has 
had a remarkably wide circulation, and from its simplicity, 
directness and sympathy has accomplished a valuable work. 
We are told by the publisher that more than a million 
copies of this tract have been published. This was the 
first output of the " Fukuinsha," * which later became the 
"Keiseisha." * A simple hymn-book written in the "Kana" 2 
was also a product of those earliest days. 

During the next five years he prepared a number of 
tracts and hand-books to meet the immediate exigencies of 
the growing churches: "A Brief Introduction to Christian- 
ity," " The Need, Object and the Right Use of the Sab- 
bath," " A Brief Natural Theology," " Proofs of the Authen- 
ticity, Credibility, and Divine Authority of the Bible," 
" Commentary on Matthew in the Colloquial," " A Short 
Sketch of Church History," "An Abridgment of Cushing's 
Manual of Parliamentary Rules," and " A Handbook on 
Church Organization and Activities and Discipline." From 
his connection with the Doshisha began a series of books and 
essays that terminated only with his death. His earlier books 
were summaries of his lectures in the Theological School. 
Thus between 1885 and 1890 appeared his " Christian 
Evidences," " Commentary on Matthew and Luke," 
" Natural Theology," and " Introduction to Theology." His 
largest work in Japanese, " The Great Principles of Theol- 
ogy," a volume of 1,070 pages, appeared in 1893, just as 

1 See page 133. 

2 " Syllabary used by the common people." 



306 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

the reaction which discounted theology was starting. Dr. 
Davis did not expect that the edition of five hundred 
volumes published by the mission would ever be sold. 
One of the cheering evidences of the return to fundamentals 
of faith was the request of the Keiseisha in 1906 for a 
second edition of this work. 

" A Systematic Theology " appeared in 1889, " A Life 
of Neesima" in 1890, and these were followed in rapid suc- 
cession by " An Outline History of Christian Doctrine," 
" An Outline Study of Ethics," " Moral Education," 
" Progress of Thought in Theology," etc. To meet the per- 
sonal problems and difficulties of his students was a practi- 
cal aim of his writings. These took the form of booklets 
of from fifty to one hundred pages, and dealt with such sub- 
jects as "The What and the Why of My Faith," "Char- 
acter Building," " The Existence of the Soul," " Moral 
Education," " Christ and Other Masters," " The Personality 
of God." He discussed, also, the controverted theological 
questions of the time: "The Authorship of the Fourth 
Gospel," " The Pentateuchal Question," " God Working 
Through Evolution," " The Existence of the Soul," " New 
Theories of Evolution." Another group of writings was 
devotional and inspirational in character: " Christ's Great 
Promises," " Spiritual Power of the Christian," " The All- 
Conquering Power of the Christian," " Spiritual Movements 
of Christianity," " Effective Evangelism," and " Revivals." 

With Dr. Davis, to have a deep conviction was to desire 
that others should share it with him, and this desire often 
found an outlet in action. He frequently published his con- 
victions, whether relating to Theology, the condition of the 
Japanese church, the dangers of a crippling financial policy, 
or the situation in the Doshisha. During the earlier years 
of rapid growth in the school and general work, whatever he 
wrote was readily accepted by the denominational papers 
in the United States, and had its share of influence upon 



THE ALL-AROUND MISSIONARY 307 

the constituency of the American Board. With the tide 
of reaction, however, his estimates of the spiritual and 
theological trend failed to please the home constituency 
and his writings were less frequently seen. Most men 
under these circumstances would have considered that with 
the closing of the press to their convictions, their case was 
hopeless; not so with Dr. Davis. Time and again, when 
the " Congregationalist," or " Advance," or " Independent" 
sent back his articles, he published them himself, in the 
form of open letters, and sent them to hundreds of the 
leading men of his denomination in the United States. 
The clarion tones of his open letter to the Congregational 
Churches of America, in the face of imminent action look- 
ing toward the gradual closing of the work of the Japan 
Mission, helped to correct the impression that the work of 
the missionary was at an end in Japan. It was a joy to 
him to live to see the day when his position upon this vital 
question was vindicated and he saw the Church and the 
Board rally to the support of their work in Japan. 

The literary work for which Dr. Davis will be remem- 
bered is the biography of his friend and colleague, Dr. 
Joseph Hardy Neesima. Out of deference to Mr. Hardy, 
Dr. Neesima's early benefactor, who was preparing a similar 
sketch, he at first limited himself to a Japanese edition. It 
was not long, however, before doubts regarding the spiri- 
tuality and greatness of the Japanese leader became mani- 
fest, and this led him to publish an English edition in 
Japan, thoroughly vindicating his friend. To this is due 
the spiritual interpretation of the book, with the intimate 
picture of Neesima's inner life and struggles which it con- 
tains. In the second edition of the Japanese biography, he 
aimed to correct certain current misapprehensions regard- 
ing Christianity and Christian education. The " Life of 
Neesima" has been revised twice in the English edition, has 
been translated into several European and Oriental Ian- 



308 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

guages and is widely used as a text-book for mission study. 
More than one Japanese boy has entered the Doshisha 
through reading the life of this modern national hero. 

It was Dr. Davis' custom to send one of his books, as a 
Christmas remembrance, to each of his former pupils and 
to many of his friends. By this method he kept personal 
relationships warm and in no small degree influenced the 
thought and Christian experience of the Church. In trying 
to stem the current of radicalism and loose thinking in the 
religious world of Japan, he sent out appeals for loyalty 
to the fundamentals of religious belief, to large numbers of 
workers of all denominations. In certain quarters, these 
efforts doubtless failed to accomplish their purpose, but not a 
few missionaries and pastors of other churches state that he 
exerted a real influence in holding men during a period 
when religious convictions were wavering in Japan. 

Regarding the more than fifty books and pamphlets that 
Dr. Davis published, he wrote: — "I have never written 
anything for money or for fame, and my Japanese books, 
poorly prepared by a foreigner, bring me disgrace rather 
than fame. What I have written has been from an inner 
impulse to express my convictions of truth and, especially, 
spiritual truth. My prayer is, that God will use the weak 
things as his instruments to do his work. I suppose that I 
ought to be ashamed that I have attempted so much and 
have not, rather, done less, better. I have been a kind 
of ' John the Baptist,' preparing the way, and I am thank- 
ful that a great number of better writers, foreign and 
Japanese, are now ready to carry on the work." 

As in his speaking, so in his writing, the work was done 
in the midst of continual interruptions. Never, save in 
the summer weeks of rest upon Mt. Hiei, did he have con- 
secutive periods for his literary work. No one was more 
conscious of this lack than he, but it was a condition over 
which he had no control, and, as such, he refused to let it 



THE ALL-AROUND MISSIONARY 309 

hinder him from what he felt impelled to attempt. He 
wrote to meet special crises, immediate situations, and that 
which his pen lacked in literary style and elegance of dic- 
tion, it made up in a promptitude, force and simplicity of 
expression that usually commanded attention. 



Chapter XXI 
RELATIONSHIPS 

IT is in the realm of personal relationships that we find 
some of the largest sources of Dr. Davis' influence and 
success as a missionary. No historical treatment of his 
life would be complete unless supplemented by a brief 
glimpse into the hearts of those friends who were in a posi- 
tion to know him as a man and a fellow missionary. 

From the first, he identified himself with Japan and with 
the Japanese. He met the final test of the missionary in 
his ability to thoroughly respect and deeply love the people. 
He frequently alluded to Japan as his adopted country, and 
his appreciation of the admirable qualities of the nation 
and his belief in her great destiny were very strong. His 
affection for the people was of such a transparent kind 
as to be a source of comment with the Japanese. Rev. K. 
Miyagawa, of Osaka, in speaking of this attitude, says: 
" The way he loved the Japanese was above our under- 
standing. It seemed, at times, as if he loved the nation 
more than we ourselves did. It is the influence of that 
love and self-sacrifice that caused me to devote my life 
to evangelistic work." 

Mr. K. Tomeoka, of the Home Reform School, of Tokyo, 
said: " Dr. Davis knew and loved the Japanese deeply, and 
on this account I never felt when with him that he was a 
foreigner." He did not have to tell the Japanese that he 
loved them nor praise them with constant flattery. On 
the contrary, he seldom used praise, preferring to inflict the 
wounds of a faithful friend. This brave candor, instead of 
repelling, drew men to him, convinced of his love and hon- 
esty. A prominent Japanese wrote of him: " His was a 

310 



RELATIONSHIPS 311 

clean-cut, transparent character, just as a bamboo splits 
evenly into two beautiful straight pieces. He adapted him- 
self to his surroundings and, comparatively early, understood 
the heart of Japan. This was because he felt as a Japa- 
nese. He well knew the spirit of the age and his addresses 
and books, though conservative, were well adapted to meet 
its needs." 

That his sympathy should reach beyond the circle of 
ordinary relationships seemed strange to his Japanese friends. 
Ex-President Shimomura, of the Doshisha, relates, " Though 
I changed my field of work and entered business, he always 
loved me in spite of it. When I failed in a certain enter- 
prise and everything looked dark, Drs. Davis and Gordon 
were the only people who came to condole with me. 
Strange that the only sympathizers in failure should have 
been foreigners." 

He appealed to the national sense of hero worship. In 
the natural gifts with which he had been endowed, the 
Japanese found evidence of the spirit of " Yamato Dama- 
shii," or the true samurai, to whom they liked to compare 
him. His military bearing and fearless spirit opened early 
doors of opportunity and continued to be a source of charm 
to the Japanese. One student in speaking of this quality 
said: "Even though you were to say, 'Japanese Hero,' 
Davis san is a hero." 

Dr. Davis' affection for the land and the people did not 
betray him into the mistake of shutting his eyes to their 
faults and inconsistencies. " May 30th, 1900. The Dosh- 
isha Constitution is at last accepted by the Department of 
Education. They refused to accept it until the school was 
reorganized, and they refused to allow the school to be 
reorganized until it had completed the school year last 
March. Then after a year of waiting, the term of service 
of two of the trustees who signed the Constitution when it 
was adopted had expired, and one other was elected. Now, 



312 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

when we applied the other day, for registration of the 
Constitution here in the Kyoto Fu, they object because of 
these changes in the personnel of the trustees. This is 
an example of how lower officials in Japan are apt to act 
like children just to show their importance. I suppose 
the matter will be arranged in some way, but it shows 
that this people need the Gospel of Christ to lift them up 
above such pettiness." 

He never acted surprised or disgusted at signs of weak- 
ness, but used to remark frequently that it was because of 
such things that he was in Japan. He saw the faults of 
the people but not with a critical eye. As one who knew 
him well said, " He recognized that some Japanese are bad 
and untrustworthy, just as many are good and great." 
He detected meanness and sham under the guise of polite- 
ness and despised it, but never condemned the nation as a 
whole for the faults of individuals or of certain classes. 
He believed, profoundly, in the inherent sturdiness of 
character of the common people and the farming class of 
Japan, and that here might be found sources of future 
national power and integrity. 

He saw, however, the necessity of standing uncompro- 
misingly for certain principles of probity, and he loved the 
Japanese so genuinely that he was willing to oppose and 
offend them to the extent of incurring bitter opposition 
and unpopularity for the sake of these principles. He 
loved Japan and the Japanese for what they were, but it 
was the potential Japan, from the standpoint of the power 
of Christ, that aroused his passionate devotion. 

His experiences with the Doshisha did not embitter or 
prejudice him. He heartily endorsed the selection of Rev. 
T. Harada as president, in 1905, although he had been a 
member of the old board of trustees, and he supported 
him most loyally in his representations to the American 
Board, repeatedly stating his complete confidence in him 



RELATIONSHIPS 313 

and in his plans for the school. He said: " We have every- 
thing to gain, from this time forward, in taking the Japa- 
nese into our fullest confidence and conference." 

In every possible manner, he obliterated national dis- 
tinctions and interpreted the motives of his Japanese asso- 
ciates generously. Rev. M. R. Gaines in speaking of this 
trait says: "In those days (1886) the twenty-five members 
of the faculty were about equally divided between Japanese 
and foreigners. In faculty meetings, if from the trend of 
discussion it was evident that a vote would result in a 
division along nationalistic lines, Dr. Davis was sure to hit 
upon some way to postpone a vote until opportunity for 
more light was given on the subject. He dreaded schism as 
much as the coming of cholera." 

That his affection and admiration for the Japanese were 
reciprocated in kind, there is abundant evidence. We have 
seen how Dr. Neesima relied upon him for support and in- 
spiration. Dr. Neesima was fond of telling of a call upon 
the President of Beloit College, in which he asked why the 
American churches did not send more men like Dr. Davis 
to Japan. " President Chapin, in a small voice, replied, 
1 To tell the truth, such men as Dr. Davis are not plentiful 
in the United States.' " Of the friendship between Dr. 
Neesima and his missionary friend, Professor T. Murata 
of the Tokyo Women's University says: " The relationship 
between them was beautiful, deep and warm, and rare be- 
tween Japanese and foreigners. Death could not change it. 
As the translator of Dr. Davis' ' Life of Neesima,' I under- 
stood the labor that he put upon that book. With great 
pains he thus introduced Dr. Neesima to the world." Dr. 
Dwight L. Learned, whose thirty-four years of close asso- 
ciation in the Doshisha enabled him to know Dr. Davis as 
possibly no other colleague, says: " We have had not a few 
strong men on the roll of our mission, but no other, I think, 
who was so widely and deeply loved by the Japanese, and 



314 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

no other who so nearly justifies my ideal of a missionary 
hero. It is a striking token of the real love of the Japa- 
nese for him that they retained it so fully in spite of their 
differences in Theology. Possibly his real greatness, his 
great talent for leadership and his executive abilities would 
have had more scope among a less developed people, where 
missionaries do not have to keep themselves so much in 
the background." 

More than one pastor has said, with Mr. Miyagawa of 
Osaka, " The way he spent himself for Doshisha and for 
the church was more than we could understand. If the 
future of the Kumi-ai Church be written, we will find 
many missionaries working, but among them Dr. Davis has 
a first place." 

Rev. T. Osada of Niigata tells of the intimate fellow- 
ship enjoyed with Dr. Davis during six weeks of touring 
together in the northern island of Hokkaido. " We trav- 
elled together on horseback, in springless carts and on foot, 
putting up in rough huts and cheerless places with the 
poorest food. Dr. Davis said that it was true ' roughing 
it,' and that it reminded him of the experiences of the Civil 
War. He showed me how to roast the green corn which 
grows there abundantly, and we ate it on the cob together. 
Finding some apples, he got a kettle and stewed up some 
nice apple sauce. He rode his horse with the skill of an 
experienced rider, and said he had learned to ride on his 
father's farm, before he went to the army. I pounded 
along behind on my steed with much awkwardness and dis- 
comfort, so that the farmer children cried out with glee at 
the contrast in our riding. The similarity of scenery, 
forests and products of Hokkaido to his native country, 
rejoiced his heart, which he opened to me in warmest fel- 
lowship as we travelled and worked like two brothers or 
like father and son for the Master. I cannot forget such 
fellowship. The two men who, more than all others, have 



RELATIONSHIPS 315 

made me what I am today are Joseph Neesima and Dr. 
Davis." 

Mr. K. Tsunashima, in the Fukuin Shimpo, of January, 
1911, spoke of him as belonging to more than Japan, to the 
whole Christian Church; and as worthy to rank with Henry 
Martyn, Alexander Duff and Davis Livingstone in mission- 
ary history, while Dr. D. C. Greene, in commenting upon 
this statement, said: " I think the same thought has been 
in many minds." 

A Japanese pastor, in speaking of Dr. Davis' understand- 
ing of the Japanese and of human nature, said: " Moving 
the hearts of people is like sinking a well: after digging a 
certain distance one comes to a layer of rock. If that can 
be penetrated abundant streams of water will gush forth. 
This supply of water is the Japanese heart which a few 
missionaries know so well how to touch. If the well digger 
would go deeper, he will strike another layer of rock, and 
penetrating this will unseal still greater supplies of peren- 
nial water. This deeper spring is the universal human 
heart which Dr. Davis understood, to which he spoke and 
which he was able to move." 



Chapter XXII 

RELATIONSHIPS: HIS MISSION 
COLLEAGUES 

DR. Davis' capacity for friendship had also ample 
scope for exercise in the circle of able colleagues 
with whom he was associated, as well as in the 
larger missionary group of the empire. He was generous 
in his appreciation of the men and women with whom he 
worked, and often spoke of their abilities, consecration and 
adaptation to the work. Those constitutionally opposed 
to his own policies he credited with noble motives and high 
abilities. In 1879 he wrote to Dr. Clark: " We men had a 
glorious talk the other night. We are closely drawn together 
without the slightest thing separating us. It would be, 
indeed, difficult to find two men so well adapted for the 
work or who are such jewels to work with, as Mr. Learned 
and Dr. Gordon. You may as well know that we have 
started a mutual admiration society." 

His largeness of heart and quick intuition enabled him to 
understand the circumstances of his friends to an unusual 
extent. Among the appeals which he presented to the 
American Board for his colleagues were opportunities for 
post-graduate study in Europe, longer furloughs, extra 
travel grants, larger outfit allowances, more comfortable 
homes, endorsement of individual enterprises, such as 
newspapers, publication work and special study, and unusual 
financial stress. Among the American Board archives were 
found sixteen separate appeals to the Prudential Commit- 
tee for generous treatment of colleagues who were under 
special financial strain, and in more than one case he 
offered and actually sent to the treasurer in Boston a part 

316 



RELATIONSHIPS: MISSION COLLEAGUES 317 

of his own salary to be used in case the Board should be 
unable to act. The fact that during thirty years of cor- 
respondence with the Board there is not a letter found in 
which he asked for generous treatment for himself is one 
that gave a peculiar potency to his appeals for his friends. 

The same qualities of sympathy and intuition, coupled 
with common sense and tact, rendered him an effective 
mediator in case of dead-locks and difficulties in the work. 
He was often called upon for service as " go-between " 
among the Japanese and between Japanese and foreigners. 
Rev. O. H. Gulick, who was closely associated with Dr. 
Davis in the early years of the mission, said: " He was 
born for friendship and was true through and through. To 
him was due, in large measure, the substantial harmony 
and unity that characterized the American Board Mission 
in Japan." 

The late Dr. D. C. Greene, senior member of the Ameri- 
can Board Mission, emphasized his capacity for friendship. 
" From the first day of his arrival Dr. Davis was very 
near to me and helped me greatly by his friendly and 
sympathetic counsel. Although I had been two years in 
the field, he had larger responsibilities upon his shoulders 
and was more mature in many ways than I, so that I 
looked up to him as an older brother. His point of view 
was, for the most part, identical with mine and we were 
found on the same side of most of the questions of mission 
policy. The breadth and heartiness of his sympathy was 
a marked characteristic. No one in perplexity or sorrow 
ever turned to him in vain. He was a noble man, a true 
and faithful friend and a great missionary. 

11 As darkness brings out the stars, obstacles, opposition, 
and hostility seemed to exhibit his brilliant, clear, shining 
Christian character. Probably the most difficult work 
that he ever did was his fight for the Doshisha in the 
nineties. If he and Neesima were the co-founders, he alone 



318 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

was the saviour of the school. No one else could have 
stood in that breach and won out. The moral courage dis- 
played was greater than any he showed in the Civil 
War, or anywhere else. His heart bled when he had to 
oppose old pupils whom he loved deeply. The wounds 
of that fight healed, but he bore to his grave the 
scars.' ' 

Rev. Henry Loomis, of the American Bible Society, 
wrote: " As a missionary, he had just the qualities that 
fitted him for the greatest usefulness. No man I have ever 
met reminded me so forcefully of President Lincoln and 
possessed, to such a remarkable degree, the same charac- 
teristics. Not only was he the same type of man, but he 
had also the remarkable gift of being able to tell stories 
that were inimitable and illustrative of the subject like 
nothing else." 

Dr. James H. Ballagh, of the Reformed Church, with a 
half-century of missionary experience in Japan, says of 
him: " In his labors for the direct evangelization of the 
people, the establishment of the church and the deepening 
of the piety of Christian workers, as well as in education 
and sound evangelical doctrine, he was a mighty power for 
good. No one was ever at a loss to know where he stood." 

The secretaries of the American Board relied upon and 
expressed their confidence in his judgment. In the early 
years of reaction, Dr. N. G. Clark replied to a letter from 
Dr. Davis which expressed anxiety over the outlook: " If we 
cannot do what we would, let us do what we can and trust 
God for the rest. I think I have had no statement of 
missionary principles touching Japan which I could so 
heartily accept through and through as I find in this letter 
of yours. Now let me, personally, thank you for all your 
effort for Japan during these twenty years." 

Upon Dr. Davis' death, Secretary Barton wrote: " How 
we shall miss him in connection with Japan! From the 



RELATIONSHIPS: MISSION COLLEAGUES 319 

very first day that I came into this office, I was brought 
more or less into connection with him, and in all Japanese 
matters we have relied greatly upon his judgment. I do 
not know that at a single point any action has been taken by 
this Board contrary to his judgment and advice; certainly 
not when we knew it." 

One of Dr. Davis' striking qualities was enthusiasm. It 
showed in his walk, in his speech and in his writings. 
Though sometimes a source of amusement to his friends, 
this quality was undoubtedly one source of his influence. 
As one of his colleagues remarked, " His strong convictions 
were contagious and carried others with them. It was hard 
not to think that what so good a man so strongly felt must 
be surely altogether right and the only right thing; it 
seemed almost heresy to differ with him." Rev. Arthur 
Stanford describes this quality, " How grandly he retained 
his youthful enthusiasms. His latest evangelistic tour was 
always his best, the last book the most inspiring. He saw 
men, ideas and things in the large. He was often seeing 
crises when no one else saw them and hence he often 
seemed to exaggerate situations. He was aware of this, for 
he once said publicly, ' You must subtract seventy-five 
percent, from what I say to get a fair average,' — a remark 
in itself an exaggeration. But his exaggeration was of the 
oratorical kind and had to do with opportunities rather 
than facts, and as the marksman who aims above the bull's 
eye hits it, so he usually made a strong impression upon 
his audience." His enthusiasms, his vivid speech and 
striking utterances rendered him good company. " His fa- 
vorite exclamation, ' Great Guns and Little Injuns,' " says 
Dr. Learned, — " indicated one of his prominent character- 
istics. Life was, indeed, to him a campaign amid big guns 
and it seemed to give a zest to life to have him in com- 
pany; something great was doing; life was indeed real and 
earnest. Possibly, the heavy artillery was sometimes too 



320 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

much in evidence on the field; that is, he was in danger of 
taking things too seriously." 

He felt things intensely and expressed himself accordingly. 
Such phrases as, " Now is the time to bring up all the 
reserve we have with God and with men," were frequent 
and indicated the martial trend of his mind. He was fond 
of placing a money valuation upon experiences that he 
specially prized: " This air is worth five dollars a minute," 
and, " This view is worth ten dollars a minute," were 
phrases often heard from a mountain top or summer excur- 
sion. " We got into the city by the skin of our teeth and 
hung on by our eyelids," he exclaimed, when once describ- 
ing the entrance of the Christian movement into Kyoto. 
He was remarkably alive and responsive to his surround- 
ings. There were few neutral tones and colors in his 
spectroscope: men and things and events stood out clean- 
cut, revealed in black and white to his quick imagination. 

His conscience was developed to an unusual degree. 
President Harada of the Doshisha tells how once when he 
had sent out a circular letter to several hundred friends 
and workers with insufficient postage, which subjected all 
the recipients to the postal fine of one sen, he could not 
rest until a letter of apology accompanied by a one sen 
stamp had been sent to each person whom he had incon- 
venienced. 

Mr. W. M. Vories, of the Omi Mission, tells of a discus- 
sion regarding the justifiability of falsehood, which one 
day arose at the table. " I shall never forget his positive- 
ness of dictum, as pushing back his chair and bringing 
his hand down with a quick gesture he exclaimed, ' As for 
me, I could not bring myself to tell a lie, even to save 
life.' " 

His character showed apparent contradictions and para- 
doxical traits. Offsetting his independence and seeming 
indifference to opposition, was an extreme sensitiveness to 



RELATIONSHIPS: MISSION COLLEAGUES 321 

criticism and a shrinking from placing himself where he 
was not wanted. There were few things that he feared 
so much as an unsympathetic audience. On his last 
return to Japan on the Pacific Mail S. S. " China " in 
December, 1905, it fell to him to arrange the Sabbath serv- 
ices, and as the other clergymen on board excused them- 
selves, he assumed responsibility for the whole service. " I 
did not want to do it. I dreaded it, but I felt I ought to 
bear witness to the Lord's work and he helped me in it." 
The same terror of not being able to satisfy those whom he 
served led him to request to be allowed to do deputation 
work in the middle West, where he felt at home, instead 
of in New England. 

However, general attacks or criticism of missions and 
missionaries so common at one time in the English press 
in Japan, he seldom read and never answered. When 
questioned regarding the matter he would say, "It never 
pays to stop to throw stones at barking dogs." 

An unusual egoism, not to be confused with egotism, was 
interwoven with a modesty and self-effacement that stood 
in strange contrast. " This egoism was a result of his 
individualism," said Dr. Otis Cary. " He thought much of 
his own personal duties to men and God and was led to 
speak freely of himself and of his experiences in public, as 
well as in private, but without self-exaltation. One of the 
contradictions in Dr. Davis' nature was, on the one hand, 
his tendency to consider that he stood alone in matters of 
faith and principle, his willingness to single-handedly, as 
he often thought, oppose himself to the general trend in 
the religious and theological world; a tendency which 
grew with age and was regretted by many of his col- 
leagues, who were generally closer to him than he under- 
stood. He often spoke and acted as though he were suffer- 
ing alone over some of the distressing situations in which 
he was placed, when in reality his colleagues were experi- 



322 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

encing the same pain and anxieties. Opposed to this trait 
was his unwillingness in matters of mission and station 
policy, to stand with a small minority, or to have a di- 
vided vote stand. He would always apply himself to the 
problem of re-framing the motion or of compromising with 
the opposition until a unanimous or fairly united action 
could be reached. I cannot recall a single instance of 
placing himself on record in a small minority vote or 
against a generally expressed opinion. It was not that he 
did not have strong convictions, but he believed in yielding 
to the majority and was willing to swing over and loyally 
support issues which he could not in the first instance 
endorse." 

He shrank from prominence and often held back from 
public honors that were his due, but if plans called for 
difficult, unpleasant or humble work, he was ready to accept 
such a part. A fund of tenderness and reverence for the 
personality, that is the basis of all true culture, offset a 
certain brusqueness and sturdy indifference to the dictates 
of fashion which offended some on first meeting him. His 
courtesy toward women was rarely equalled by those who 
criticised his roughness. He felt his lack in these things 
and his surprise and pleasure were very great on being 
once told by a Southern lady, that his courtliness to women 
approached more nearly the standards of the old South 
than those she usually met in Japan. Though formidable 
as an antagonist and uncompromising upon matters of vital 
principle, he never failed to honor his opponent's reality 
of conviction, and he could win or lose in such a way as to 
keep the respect and affection of those whom he opposed. 
His charity toward those differing with him enabled him 
to hold men's hearts even when he could not convince their 
minds. 

A quick appreciation of beauty in every form was a 
characteristic that enriched his life. In 1888, he wrote to 



RELATIONSHIPS: MISSION COLLEAGUES 323 

his children: " I have been thinking much lately of the 
beauty there is in the world, the sky, clouds, trees, the 
flowers and a thousand other things. If we could only 
always look at the beautiful, instead of the ugly things of 
life, and at our blessings and not our sorrows, we should 
be happier. In the same way we would get more solid 
comfort out of life and do more good, if we thought of the 
sure things of the present and future. There are too many 
glorious actualities to allow us to grieve over 'might have 
beens,' or ' may be's,' in this world." He had a ready 
appreciation of the lovely art work of the people among 
whom he lived. After describing the minute labor spent 
upon the damascene and cloisonne ware of Kyoto which 
he had shown to visiting friends who were more interested 
in art than in the Doshisha, he said: " If I had ten thou- 
sand dollars that I could not put to better use, I should 
like to place that amount of beauty in my home, but I had 
rather lay up my treasures where moth and rust do not 
corrupt and where thieves do not break through and steal. 
I can wait for the furnishing of my house until I have a 
more permanent one. 

" The beauty and symmetry which the microscope re- 
veals in the insect and vegetable worlds fill me with awe, 
wonder and gratitude. Some of the structures are so ex- 
quisitely beautiful that it is almost a pain to me to look 
at them. It is more than my poor body can endure. If 
the undevout astronomer is mad, so is the undevout micro- 
scopist." 

He was often in a meditative mood regarding the future 
life and enjoyed arguing from the beauties of earth to the 
glories of heaven. He used to say: " I get as curious as a 
boy when I think about the things over there." Upon the 
death of a sister-in-law, who had spent years in his home, 
he wrote: " My mind has dwelt a good deal, lately, upon 
the many mansions in our Father's house. It is certain 



324 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

that the spiritual does not exist for the material, but that 
the material universe was created for the spiritual. The 
hundred millions of suns already charted upon the maps 
of the astronomer suggest such possibilities of the man- 
sions which may be our home through the eternal years, 
that I look to the life and the study and the work there 
with increasing hope and zest every year." 



Chapter XXIII 
RELATIONSHIPS: HIS FAMILY 

LACKING as it had been in his own training, inti- 
mate self-expression was unnatural to Dr. Davis, and 
even with his own family it was not easy to open 
his heart. He was, however, essentially a family man. In 
the midst of a morning's work he would join in a game of 
prisoner's base or hide and seek with the children and for 
the time outdo them all in boyish exuberance of spirits. He 
took a keen relish in the development and conversation of 
his little children. He aided his growing boys in their 
engineering and boat-building schemes and even planned for 
them a coasting trip with the American sled to the top of 
Mt. Hiei, seven miles away. As soon as they were old 
enough to climb the mountain, his boys accompanied him 
upon the annual survey of the summer camp, where they 
helped in its repair and camped out together in the cedar 
forest. To a very unusual degree he kept in touch with 
household problems and was seldom too busy to get out 
his tool box and make repairs and, in a multitude of ways, 
advance the comforts and conveniences of the home. 

His habit of picnicking one day in seven, was another 
point of contact with his children, who often accompanied 
the parents to the beauty spots around Kyoto. Each 
child had his load to carry, and woe betide the one who 
kept the party waiting after the appointed hour. Weather 
seldom stood in the way of a promised outing; they usually 
started rain or shine, greatly to the credit of the father's 
reputation with the children. A camp-fire dinner of roasted 
potatoes or corn on the cob would be followed by inimitable 
stories from his own experience or some well-chosen book, 

325 



326 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

The homeward walk was enlivened for small, weary feet 
with marching songs and mimic evolutions, while now and 
then the Captain hid behind some great cryptomeria tree 
or stone image along the line of march and roguishly put 
to rout his whole command. 

Dr. Davis took advanced ground upon the question of 
vacations and proper measures for maintaining health in 
Japan. He did not criticise those who considered his pre- 
cautions extreme, but contented himself with the principle 
that time would justify his course and that the same rules 
could not be applied to all men. After his first break- 
down in 1879, he learned to gauge his own strength and 
needs, and to safeguard them became a part of his religion. 
When the Board felt compelled to cut off vacation allow- 
ances in 1879, his protest was sent in the return mail. 
11 This travel allowance has been the means of keeping sev- 
eral of us from breaking down. To cut off this $50.00 will 
be a saving of a few hundred dollars a year to the Board, 
but I fear it will cost you, in the end, many thousands of 
dollars and some men. I shall take my rest each Summer, 
if the heavens fall, but others will not get the change they 
need, since they will try to rest in the station where they 
live because this appropriation has stopped. You might 
as well talk about the generals of an army resting at the 
front in the midst of an assault upon the enemies' works." 

His affection for Kyoto, with its beautiful environment 
of mountain, temple and lake, grew with each year. On 
returning from his last furlough he wrote to his family, still 
in America: " I have just returned from our walk, and 
the memories of those who have been with me on it so 
many times is good company. But the old mountains at 
which I have been looking for thirty years are also good 
company. I cannot be lonely on Hiei; each nook and tree 
and walk is peopled with memories of those I love and who 
for thirty years have walked with me under those groves." 



RELATIONSHIPS: HIS FAMILY 327 

His memories went back to the first summer upon the 
mountain, in 1876, when after receiving permission from 
Tokyo to spend two months upon Mt. Hiei, he had moved 
his family to summer amid its cool groves and picturesque 
temple ruins. " Within a day or two, a priest who lived 
on the mountain told me that we were on temple property 
and must move off. I asked him how far the temple reser- 
vations extended, and he said, ' to the foot of the mountain 
on all sides.' I showed him my permit from the Foreign 
Department to live in tents for two months on Mt. Hiei, 
but he said that made no difference, we must move off. I 
told him we should not move off until ordered by the 
Foreign Department. 

"The next day, the priest returned with the mayor of the 
village that had jurisdiction of the mountain. The mayor 
ordered me to leave. I showed him my permit, but he 
again ordered me to go, which I refused to do on the same 
grounds as before. Soon after, an officer from the Province 
of Shiga came up to look into the matter. Examining my 
passport, he pointed to the printed regulations upon its 
back, stating that it was limited to thirty days. I showed 
him the written statement upon the face of the passport, 
permitting me two months' residence on Mt. Hiei, and 
told him that the written permission took precedence of the 
printed rules. He replied that the back of my passport 
did not agree with the face, and that I should have had 
them correspond before coming onto the mountain. I finally 
told him that I was there, as stated on the passport, 
for health; that my seven months old baby was very sick 
with inflammation of the bowels, and that it would prob- 
ably prove fatal to move him down into the heat; that 
I could not move at present and would not until ordered 
to do so from the central government. He went back to 
Otsu and began telegraphing to Tokyo. I began to get 
anxious about our situation, 



328 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

11 1 next saw an old priest who had lived long on the moun- 
tain and asked him if he could not show me the lines of the 
temple reservation. He refused at first, but with the 
promise of a reward, agreed to meet me at daybreak and 
show me the boundaries. It turned out, as I had suspected, 
that the lines which had until recently extended to the 
foot of the mountain, had been cut down the previous year, 
and I found that by moving our tents a few rods, we 
would be off the temple grounds. I reported my discov- 
ery and willingness to move, to the Otsu official, who was 
entirely satisfied, and although the priests in their anger 
refused to let us draw water from their spring, the Otsu 
provincial office gave me permission to do so. Thus after 
moving our tents to a most delightful spot, overlooking 
the city of Kyoto and the mountain ranges to the West, 
we passed a restful summer." 

Of settling the summer camp in the rainy season and the 
difficulties of getting provisions packed up the mountain, he 
wrote: "You cannot do anything in this country without 
being reminded that you are in a foreign land. I had care- 
fully packed in a large pail what is left of our pickled 
butter, packed on a California ranch a year ago last Spring, 
not very fresh, but better than what we get here. I put 
in enough of the original brine pickle to cover the butter 
and gave it to a man to carry by hand with some crockery. 
When the pail reached camp, all the brine had been emp- 
tied out ' to make it lighter.' This has not improved our 
butter. These things are not worth mentioning, except 
to let you see the small side of our lives. We have an 
easier time than Paul did in his missionary work." 

Though economy was practised in the home, it was 
applied so carefully as to cause neither humiliation nor dis- 
comfort to the children, and, if luxuries were scarce, there 
was never a lack of the best things of life in food, cloth- 
ing, books, games, pictures and music. Dr. Davis was a 



RELATIONSHIPS: HIS FAMILY 329 

master at finance: never too busy to drive a bargain, nor 
too proud to 6ave by the use of ingenuity or self-denial. 
He had the good sense, however, not to entail his self- 
denials upon others nor to expect his children to practise 
all the economies that appealed to him. " Do not count 
on uncertain sources of income and think all around a 
question before spending," he wrote to a son in college. 
" This will serve you a good turn all your life. I have never 
owed a man a cent in my life, unless it was some little 
account that could not well be. paid from day to day. 
Make a point to have from three to six months' expenses 
ahead, so that when any unexpected emergency arises you 
can meet it without borrowing. . . . Anything which will 
make me more efficient for my work, spiritually, physically 
or mentally, is a legitimate use of it." 

He applied these principles so thoroughly that his wife 
had to intervene occasionally between his conscience and 
himself. He enjoyed telling of the overcoat which after 
having worn for seven winters he had had turned and used 
seven years longer. Half apologetically, he would add, " I 
could have worn it a good deal longer, but that the elbows 
and sleeves were worn through from the thousands of miles 
of rubbing on the arms of jinrickshas." 

He was accustomed to travel third-class upon many of 
his railway trips. A friend living in the far north tells 
of how upon leaving him after an evangelistic tour, Dr. 
Davis, at the railway station, handed him five yen for the 
local work and then bought a third-class ticket for Tokyo. 
" It made a deep impression upon me. In other words, he 
presented me with thirty hours of comfort to help our 
work." Although for twelve years the trunk lines in Japan 
had provided sleeping cars, until within a few months of 
his death Dr. Davis had never used one. When he finally 
did, it was through the mistake of the porter, who had 
been told to arrange a place in the ordinary car, but made 



330 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

up a berth for him instead. Since the bill was already 
made out, he did not trouble them to have it changed, 
and slept in a sleeper for the first time in Japan. 

The death of his first wife and the separation from his 
children revealed a new tenderness in his letters. He de- 
termined not to lose his children, and threw himself un- 
reservedly into the weekly letter, which for twenty years 
spanned the ocean and continent that lay between them. 
He tried to help his children in their problems by suggest- 
ing wise principles of action, but final decisions were left 
to them. Even if he could not approve of the wisdom of 
their choices, he honored their judgment and sympatheti- 
cally backed their plans. He strongly disapproved his son's 
playing football, but rejoiced with him in the success of his 
team, and added, " I am reconciled to your having played 
this season now that you have stood well in your studies 
and have not broken your neck." When one of his sons 
persisted in a summer in Swiss Alpine climbing, against 
his father's judgment, Dr. Davis, finally, sent him one 
hundred dollars, as a margin of safety, and heartily sym- 
pathised with him in the joys of the experience. 

His own dread of proving a burden to his friends is 
reflected in a large number of letters, urging his children to 
show consideration toward those from whom they received 
kindness and hospitality. " I hope that you will try to 
be as helpful as possible wherever you visit this Summer. 
Take nothing as your right or as a matter of course. Do 
not expect others to wait upon you, and when you see that 
people are doing their own work, to which you add, be sure 
to do your part of it." 

Even more did he urge that quality which was so closely 
related to his own success. " I hope that you will hold on 
in your work till the end of your contract. Not only will 
your reputation be affected by this, but what is worth far 
more, the foundation of real reputation, your character will 



RELATIONSHIPS: HIS FAMILY 331 

be affected by it. It is generally best to stick to one's 
decisions, especially in a public contract, where one has 
carefully considered the matter. The bent of mind which 
will hold on and hold in and hold out, in the face of great 
difficulties, is one of the chief secrets of success." 

When the war with Spain broke out, in 1898, and his 
son who was in college wished to enlist, Dr. Davis wrote: 
" I see that President McKinley has called out 100,000 
volunteers. I hope that you will go on with your studies 
calmly in the midst of this excitement. This is not going 
to be a great war. Men in your position and with your life 
purpose are not called to enlist until the country absolutely 
needs them. There are a thousand whose going is not 
likely to break up life plans, where there is one, like you, 
whose going is apt to do this. Be ready to go if you are 
needed to save the country, but do not go because there is 
a chance. You can serve your country best by staying 
where you are and preparing for service in a higher battle. 
You are the son of a soldier, but you are the son of a 
soldier who did not go until it became evident that his 
country would be lost if he did not fight, and who also 
lay awake for joy all the first night after the order came to 
be mustered out of service. War is ' hell on earth ' ; keep 
out of it if you can." 

He aimed that his children should realize the value of 
their opportunities and the moral responsibilities which 
such opportunities carried with them. " These are priceless 
years. They will never come back. If General Grant had 
realized, when a cadet at the Military Academy, that he 
was to command the armies of the United States, he would 
probably have studied harder than he did. You may be 
called upon to take an active part in a conflict even greater 
than the Civil War, a conflict whose issue will be the mak- 
ing of the kingdoms of this world the kingdoms of our 
Lord and of his Christ." However deep the impression of 



332 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

such letters, it was the life behind them which was a 
stronger argument than the father could know for deter- 
mining the life principles of his children. Those who know 
him best are not surprised that five of his six children 
have chosen their father's calling of foreign missionary 
service. 1 

The devotion of Livingstone had fired his imagination 
and fixed his interest in the dark continent. As a young 
man he had said: " If I had two lives I would put one 
into Africa." When the question of his eldest daughter's 
location in missionary work was finally decided in favor of 
Africa, there was not a tinge of regret in his letters. " I 
have always wanted to put one life into Africa; now per- 
haps I can, through my daughter." 

He was extremely fond of biography, especially of great 
missionaries. Duff, Martyn, Carey, Livingstone, Morrison, 
Xavier, Wilfrid and Bernard of Clairvaux were among the 
lives to which he often turned for inspiration. January 
1st, 1900, he wrote: " I have been reading the lives of 
Austin Phelps, Hamlin and Duff recently, and very rich 
reading they are. I enjoy true biography much better than 
fiction. It is marvellous to see how the life of one man 
like Duff, impinging on a great continent as India, changes 
its history. His success came from his loyalty to God's 
word and his determination that it should be taught in his 
schools." 

As children, we both feared and adored our father. 
Usually, one word from his compressed lips or a glance of 
his penetrating eye was enough to cut short childish law- 
lessness. It was not that his punishments were severe; he 
seldom punished us, but his disapproval and sorrow at 
our wrongdoing were too intense to arouse carelessly. 
The other side of that strong nature, the tenderness, like 

1 Mrs. F. B. Bridgman of Johannesburg, So. Africa, Mrs. C B. Olds, of Niigata 
Japan, Mrs. R. E. Chandler, of Tientsin, China, Mr. J. D. Davis, of Union Theological 
Seminary, N. Y., and J. M. Davis of Tokyo, Japan. 



RELATIONSHIPS: HIS FAMILY 333 

a woman's, with which he cared for our delicate mother or 
nursed us when sick, few were privileged to understand. 
He relied upon the best medical skill obtainable, but he 
also believed in the duty of the parent in the care of the 
child, for he had an unusual sense of his accountability to 
God for the lives and destiny of those who were entrusted 
to his fatherhood. This acceptance of responsibility for his 
family, its welfare, physical, intellectual and spiritual, was 
the dominant note in his home relationships. 

To his aged father, past ninety years, he wrote tenderly 
each month. "October 31st, 1888. Dear Father: — I am 
wondering how it is with you. If you could have been 
in our home the last few weeks you would have enjoyed 
our beautiful weather and scenery, for the maples are now 
coming into the glory of their Autumn tints. If this world 
is so beautiful what will the palace of the King, the many 
mansions our Saviour is preparing for us, be ? One of the 
first year men brought his old father here this morning. He 
lives five hundred miles from here and has never heard of 
the Truth until recently, but he seems very ready to hear. 
It was touching to see how eager the son is to have his 
father find Christ. It was a great joy to talk and pray 
with this old man who is so near eternity. I am glad I 
can do something for the fathers here, if I am too far to 
be of much comfort to you." 



Chapter XXIV 
LAST YEARS 

THE new century opened with much promise for the 
Christian Movement in Japan. The era of reaction 
had reached its limit and the nation was beginning 
to adjust itself to the influences which had temporarily 
upset its equilibrium. The granting of reciprocal treaty 
uprights by western powers and the abolishing of extra-terri- 
torial courts had done much to allay the anti-foreign feel- 
ing, while the promulgation of a national constitution, the 
convening of an imperial parliament and the granting of a 
limited franchise to the people had all acted as steadying 
influences. The conviction was growing in the nation that 
it was essential, not only to conserve the moral and spiri- 
tual forces of Japan, but frankly to accept and use the best 
that the West had to offer, in every department of life. 

A new faith and sense of security and hope for the future 
was increasing among Christian leaders, with the growing 
independence of the Japanese Church, and there now stead- 
ily developed within the Church not only an appreciation of 
its own powers, but a deepening realization of its own 
shortcomings and its heed of the vital forces of spiritual 
power. With the sources of friction and jealousy between 
the missionaries and their Japanese colleagues largely re- 
moved, a new period of cooperation, of mutual dependence 
upon one another for the accomplishment of the great task 
before the Church, was now entered. 

The third General Conference of Protestant Missionaries 
in Japan was convened in October, 1900, in Tokyo. This 
conference, of which Dr. Davis was elected chairman, was, 
for the four hundred and fifty missionaries gathered in its 

334 



LAST YEARS 335 

sessions a recapitulation of the failures, the difficulties 
and achievements of the previous decade and a council 
of war for the new century. 

The introductory remarks of the chairman in his opening 
address were indicative of the spirit of the gathering: — 
" The time and place of this Missionary Conference em- 
phasize its importance. We meet just as the fading light 
of the Nineteenth Century is verging into the dawn of 
the Twentieth. The century just closing has witnessed 
the development of modern missions from their birth, to the 
magnificent proportions in which they appeared at the 
Ecumenical Council in New York, last April. We may 
hope that the century upon which we are soon to enter 
will see the ' Kingdoms of this world become the King- 
doms of our Lord and of His Christ.' 

" We meet here in this eastern gateway of the Orient, 
among people who are to have a powerful influence in the 
civilization, and, as we may also believe, in the Christian- 
ization of eastern Asia. In every effort that we put forth 
for the Christianization of Japan, we should be stimulated 
by the thought that each wave set in motion here will 
move on, affecting directly or indirectly hundreds of mil- 
lions of people. 

11 This is the third general conference held in Japan. The 
first was held in Yokohama, twenty-eight years ago this 
month. The less than twenty missionaries who attended it 
comprised nearly all who were then in Japan. Neither God's 
Word or other Christian literature existed in the Japanese 
language. The edicts against Christianity were posted on 
all the bulletin boards of the empire. Hardly a beginning 
had been made in evangelistic work. 

" The second conference was held in Osaka, seventeen 
years ago. The foundation had been laid and that confer- 
ence was followed by a general outpouring of God's Spirit 
and a period of great ingathering. We have now passed 



336 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

through a period of reaction. Nationalistic and rational- 
istic waves have swept over the Church and chilled it. 
Signs are, however, everywhere apparent of renewed life 
and hope and zeal. We have every encouragement, as we 
meet in this third general conference, to ask for and to 
expect and to prepare to receive great things from God's hand. 
I trust that we all come together here with this faith and 
hope, and that this will be the keynote of all the meetings." 

This general conference was effective in fixing attention 
upon the Twentieth Century Union Forward Evangelistic 
Movement, in which nearly all of the churches in Japan 
united for a sustained effort during the opening year of the 
new century. District committees were organized in all 
parts of the empire, working in cooperation with the cen- 
tral committee. 

The activity of laymen in individual work, in distribu- 
tion of tracts and in street services was a marked feature 
of the campaign. 

On December 14th, a great thanksgiving service, at 
which reports of the year's work were received, was held in 
Tokyo. The principal addresses of the meeting were given 
by Rev. (later Bishop) Y. Honda and Dr. Davis, upon the 
subject of training enquirers. The work had been carried 
on in forty-two provinces, by twenty-two denominations 
and by five hundred and thirty-six workers, representing 
three hundred and seventy-six churches. Over 600,000 
tracts were distributed and upwards of ten thousand yen 
was raised. Twenty thousand persons were enrolled as 
enquirers after the Truth. 

Dr. Davis threw himself with great energy into this 
movement. As a member of the central committee of 
management, as a speaker for central Japan and as one of 
the union committee for the Kyoto district and as chair- 
man of the committee for training enquirers, his heart and 
time were thus largely occupied for two years. 



LAST YEARS 337 

Prominent among the results of the Union Evangelistic 
Movement were the attention awakened by Christianity 
among all classes, the impetus given toward church union, 
the quickened spiritual life of the church and its recogni- 
tion of responsibility for evangelizing Japan, the new con- 
ception of the size of the task before the Church, the im- 
petus toward self-support and the new realization of the 
power of the united Church of Christ which such a pro- 
longed, common effort aroused on every side. 

Weaknesses, emphasized by the campaign, were the need 
of better methods for conserving and training enquirers; 
the need of more personal work and systematic Bible study ; 
the need of a greater emphasis upon the sinful condition 
of men and their need of a Saviour; the need of a greater 
continuity of preaching, more logical presentation of truth 
and of pushing out into unoccupied fields. 

In October, 1901, a pleasing surprise came to Dr. Davis, 
in the form of an invitation to preach the Communion Ser- 
mon at the District Conference of the Kumi-ai Churches 
held in Nagoya. For years no missionary had been asked 
to preach on such an occasion. "It seems strange that I, 
the oldest missionary in our group, who have been so much 
criticised and opposed by the Japanese, should be singled 
out to give this sermon. It shows how the tide is turn- 
ing. 

The rise of the Doshisha after its temporary eclipse was 
rapid. When President Saibara left for America, early in 
1902, Hon. Kenkichi Kataoka, President of the Lower 
House of Parliament, was the choice of the Trustees as his 
successor. This remarkable Christian statesman was in 
every way worthy of the best traditions of the Doshisha. 

While running for a parliamentary seat from his district, 
he was elected an elder in the little Presbyterian Church of 
Kochi, of which he was a member. When his political 
supporters, dismayed at the local prominence of his Chris* 



338 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

tian office, urged him not to accept it, Mr. Kataoka stated, 
" I would rather be known as an elder of the Presbyterian 
Church of Kochi than as Chairman of the House of Com- 
mons." His position was justified, not only by his election 
from the Kochi District, but later by his elevation to the 
Presidency of the Lower House, a position which he held 
for ten consecutive years. At the inaugural dinner given 
by the Trustees to their new President, after taking the 
oath of office, Mr. Kataoka suddenly bowed his head, with 
the words, " I want to pray," and touched the heart of 
every man present by the depth and consecration of his 
prayer. He then said that he had prayed for two months 
that he might not have to take this position, that he did not 
feel worthy of it, but that he could get no peace until he 
had decided to take it, for he believed that it was God's 
will for him. 

During his brief term of presidency there was a marked 
gain in the spirit and enrollment of the school, and before 
his death the following October, the Doshisha had begun to 
look upward. Dr. Davis attended the funeral of this 
Christian statesman in his home town of Kochi, in far 
away Shikoku, and preached his funeral sermon, and later 
wrote a sketch of his life which was published in both 
English and Japanese. 

In the autumn of 1901 came the Mott meetings and a 
large influx of Christians, together with a new spirit in the 
Doshisha. The next year, Dr. Davis wrote: " It is an 
inspiration to see the Doshisha: the Chapel full every 
morning at Prayers, with monitors checking the attendance 
of each man. Dr. Nakaseto is Superintendent of the Sun- 
day school and is taking a great interest in the spiritual 
training of the students. 

" President Kataoka has his rooms adjoining the office, 
and eats and sleeps there so that the students and teachers 
come to him freely. Such a man, taking such a course, as 



LAST YEARS 339 

head of the school, lifts it right up. In the present crisis 
of his Constitutional Party he can hardly escape one more 
term in Parliament, but he hopes to retire in the near 
future." 

In the late winter of 1904, Dr. Davis was very ill with 
heart difficulty. For a long time he hovered on the border- 
land, despaired of by his physicians, yet when conscious, 
himself, cool-headed and determined to live. 

During the long fight for life, he told his wife that it 
would have been easy to give up and die, but he believed 
he could still be of some use in Japan. His daughter, Mrs. 
C. B. Olds, says: "His brain worked faster and better than 
that of any one else and he seemed to know exactly how to 
manage his case. His recovery was due, in large part, to 
his own determination to get well and to do everything 
possible to help toward that end." 

On leaving Kyoto for the home land, in May, he was 
presented with gifts from the students and alumni of the 
Doshisha, together with an address of presentation: — 

"Our beloved Professor Davis: — 

You entered our country in the fourth year of Meiji 
(1871), when the nation was not yet awake from the dream 
of ' expulsion of the barbarians,' and when the spirit of 
hatred of foreigners was still rampant. This was more 
than thirty years ago. The changes of the fortune of the 
country were since quite wonderful: namely, she has passed 
through the Civil War of 1877, the Promulgation of the 
Constitution, the opening of the Parliament and the China- 
Japanese War, and, lastly, she is now facing in arms, Russia, 
the Giant of Europe. 

You have breathed the air of Japan more than most of 
us; you have witnessed the development of Japan more 
than most of us; you have contributed to the civilization 
of Japan more than most of us. When the late Mr. 



340 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

Neesima returned home with the brilliant idea of founding 
the Doshisha, it was you and the late Mr. Kakuma Yama- 
moto who understood his idea best and helped his work 
with the most enthusiasm and sincerity. 

When by the loss of both Mr. Neesima and Mr. Yama- 
moto the career of the Doshisha became difficult, it was you 
who felt the greatest pain and realized the hardest blow. 
We cannot estimate how .many nights you were sleepless 
over the cares of the school and spent the whole night in 
prayer to God. 

Is there any man who has ever trodden the campus of 
the Doshisha and perceived your intense earnestness, your 
profound love and your immensity of sympathy, — is there 
any man who is not captivated by your personality? 

Now that prospects of the Doshisha are becoming bright, 
again, we are unfortunate in having you become ill. On 
hearing that you are going home on furlough, it is our 
desire to present to you a cloisonne vase and a cut velvet, 
as slight tokens of our deep gratitude to you. 

Kindly accept them as souvenirs of loving devotion of 
pupils to their master, and be assured that our prayer is 
for the heavenly protection on you over land and sea. 

Yours very reverently." 

This letter, bearing five hundred and forty-five signa- 
tures, including every member of the Kumamoto Band and 
others of the old Board of Trustees of the Doshisha, was 
a striking proof of the entire reconciliation of the pupils to 
their old teacher. 

Three months on the upper waters of the St. Croix 
River, on the edge of the New Brunswick wilderness, fol- 
lowed by a quiet winter in Washington, D. C, restored 
much of Dr. Davis' vitality, and in the fall of 1905, just 
thirty-four years from his first departure for Japan, he 
returned to the Far East for his final term of service. 



LAST YEARS 341 

His last five years were a fitting culmination of his life 
service. They were years of comparative peace after the 
storms and conflicts of a generation. 

Though not without misgivings, at times, over the growth 
within the Church of theories which he felt minimized the 
person and the power of his divine Lord, still the dominant 
note of these final years was that of profound thanksgiving 
for what God had wrought in the spiritual temple of the 
empire. He rejoiced in the steady growth of the Doshisha 
in enrollment, endowment and in Christian spirit. The 
school had gained all of the privileges previously denied by 
the government, the alumni had rallied to secure a large 
endowment fund, and active steps were being made toward 
incorporating the Doshisha as a full university. 1 

By 1907, with the election of Rev. T. Harada, of Kobe, 
to the presidency, a complete reconciliation with the old 
friends and trustees of the school was effected, four of their 
number returning to serve as Trustees of the Doshisha. 

Even more remarkable to Dr. Davis was the love and 
esteem for their old teacher, expressed by men whom a dec- 
ade before had been bitterly estranged. This seemed to 
him a striking tribute to the uniting power of Christ and 
the power of the old Doshisha spirit to hold its men. Illus- 
trative of this are the words of Rev. Danjo Ebina, of 
Tokyo: " In April, 1910, I was asked to speak at Mission 
Meeting about the fundamental principles of mission work. 
When I finished my speech, Dr. Davis came and shook 
me by the hand, saying that what I had said was exactly 
what he thought and that that was the only way to bring 
the whole world to Christ. I shall never forget the leaping 
joy at that time; it can only be compared to an affection- 
ate son's heart when he is comprehended by his dear old 
father." 

1 In 1912, by the addition of departments of Law and Economics, the Doshisha 
was raised to the rank of a full university, and stands today, with its six departments 
and thirteen hundred students, as the first Christian University of the Empire. 



342 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

To one who had but a short generation before found 
central Japan without the Word of God, without a Chris- 
tian church or school or a single Christian believer, the 
swift and triumphant progress of the Church of Christ was 
compelling evidence of the presence and power of the living 
God. 

His belief in the inherent possibilities of the Japanese 
Church in its mission of leadership in the Far East and its 
missionary potentiality was shown on many occasions in 
his last years. At the Jubilee Convention in 1909, cele- 
brating the completion of fifty years of Protestant Chris- 
tianity in Japan, he stated that the Japanese Church was 
not only in a position to control and lead in its own devel- 
opment, but that it should now reach out actively for the 
evangelization of Korea and China. These same convictions 
were strikingly expressed in a sermon delivered before 
the missionaries at Karuizawa, in 1909, on " the missionary 
possibilities of the Japanese Church," which was considered 
by many to be the strongest public message he had ever 
given. 

On November 9th, 1907, Dr. Davis again took the oath 
of office, as a director of the Doshisha, and was made one 
of the three members of the executive committee. His 
teaching in the school was now limited to courses in Evan- 
gelistic Theology, Missions, Revivals and kindred subjects, 
but the greater part of his time was devoted to general and 
personal ministrations, to consultations and the giving of 
counsel upon various subjects, for which he continued to 
be sought. 

As the years drew on, the reality of his personal Saviour, 
the presence of the Holy Spirit and the power of the un- 
seen God became more and more vivid to Dr. Davis. 
Christ formed, to an unusual degree, the focus of his faith, 
God the underlying background of his life. " I have never 
known anyone," says Dr. Sidney Gulick, " in whom the 




REV. TASUKU HARADA 
PRESIDENT OF DOSHISHA, I9O7 



LAST YEARS 343 

life of Christ formed so complete a center for his religious 
experience. To him, Jesus was God, rather than the man of 
God, to draw a rather minute distinction. In the midst 
of all his trials and problems he turned to Jesus with a con- 
viction of his presence and power to help, which was very 
inspiring to me." 

This vivid realization of a personal God was supple- 
mented by a high loyalty to God's Word and gave him the 
sense of an impregnable position. He wrote in 1900: "We 
must each decide for ourselves what our personal duty is, 
in these trying times, but let us have charity for those who 
differ with us. There is one great consolation : God's truth 
will not be overthrown and the man who stands with these 
great fundamental truths of the Gospel, the Gulf Currents 
of Scripture, which have been the power of the Church in 
all ages, giving it its victories, that man has eternal truth 
and the infinite God with him. He is sure of victory." 

An evangelistic tour through Korea, made in 1907, as the 
representative of the Kumi-ai churches, deeply impressed 
him with the spiritual vitality of the Korean Church. It 
aroused in his heart an inextinguishable hope for his beloved 
Japan that it might share in the blessings that were being 
poured upon Korea. On his return to Kyoto, he pub- 
lished a booklet on " The Gospel in Korea," which he sent 
to hundreds of Japanese workers in the hope that it would 
stimulate them to something of the personal work and 
spiritual activity of the Korean Christians. He began to 
pray and study, constantly, upon this problem, which now 
became the center of his thoughts, conversation, writing and 
preaching. He made an exhaustive study of the subject 
of revivals and their governing conditions and of the lives 
of great revivalists and their writings. The number of 
volumes in his library bearing upon this subject witness 
to the power of this ambition for the Church of Japan 
which possessed him. He said, " I believe we should look 



344 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

for the Church of Christ to move forward in this century 
with accelerated speed, just as everything else is moving. 
There are many signs of this." 

He published the results of this study in " Revivals, 
their nature and history," " Successful Evangelistic Work," 
11 Effective Evangelism," " The Spiritual Movements of 
Christianity, " and " The Missionary Possibilities of the 
Japanese Church." He delivered courses of lectures upon 
the subject of revivals in several of the Mission Colleges 
of the country. Pastors, missionaries and schools called for 
the distribution of his addresses, and they also appeared in 
missionary magazines in England and America. 

In the spring of 1910, Dr. Davis was appointed a dele- 
gate by the American Board from its Japan Mission to the 
World's Missionary Conference in Edinburg. On the eve 
of his departure for Europe, in company with President 
Harada of the Doshisha, he had a long interview with the 
Premier Marquis Katsura, in which that statesman ex- 
pressed his satisfaction at the growth and moral influence 
of the Doshisha, and his appreciation of its value as a 
source of culture for Japan. He also expressed his confi- 
dence in the friendship of the United States and the need 
of fundamental sympathy and understanding between the 
two nations. "It was an inspiration to see such a man at 
the helm in Japan and to listen to his earnest, honest, 
heartfelt words of sympathy with the United States and 
desire for peace with all nations. He authorized us 
to use his words freely, as we go to England and 
America." 

At the Edinburg Conference, Dr. Davis made a short 
address upon the " Dependence on Prayer and the Holy 
Spirit in Mission Work." The long overland journey 
through Siberia and Europe, the exhilaration of the vast 
Christian gathering and the homeward Atlantic voyage, 
made heavy drafts upon his failing strength, and he was 



LAST YEARS 345 

glad of the quiet rest that the summer at Lake Webb, in 
Maine, afforded. 

Here the growing heart difficulty, manifest by extreme 
distress in breathing and loss of sleep, became acute. In 
early September, he sought the help of Boston specialists, 
who gave temporary relief, but it was plain to his friends 
that working days were nearly over. Against the judgment 
of his physicians, Dr. Davis attended two sessions of the 
Centenary Celebration of the American Board in Boston, 
in early October, in each of which he spoke with something 
of his old-time vigor. He expressed his optimism over the 
outlook in Japan and his conviction of the urgency of the 
hour for a vigorous advance if Japan were to be won for 
Christ, and, finally, a strong hope that he might be able to 
return to his post. 

But the old warrior had sounded his last charge. Soon 
after the American Board meeting, Dr. and Mrs. Davis 
travelled to Oberlin, O., expecting to enjoy a visit with 
relatives, Dr. and Mrs. E. I. Bosworth. Dr. Davis reached 
Oberlin on the 26th of October, in a state of collapse, 
strong opiates bringing the only rest and freedom from 
suffering. Toward the end, in one of his moments of con- 
sciousness, when told that his life was nearing its close, he 
seemed shocked, for he had steadily believed in his ability 
to throw off the illness as he had previously done. " I did 
not expect to be the first to go. I would like to have 
stayed a little longer for the sake of my family, but it is 
all right." When asked if he had a message for his chil- 
dren and friends in Japan, he replied, " I have no other 
message than my life; my life is my message to my chil- 
dren." A little later, he said: " The Fourteenth Chapter of 
John is my comfort now. . . . The hope that I have for 
my family and for myself is worth more than the whole 
world." 

" We were all gathered around the bed that morning, 



346 DAVIS, SOLDIER MISSIONARY 

and the doctor (a classmate of his oldest daughter) sat 
beside him, so tender and kind, I could not but think, ' he 
is taking Clara's place.' Once while suffering with a breath- 
less spell, Genevieve suggested singing, and she and Burnell 
sang together, ' Jesus, lover of my soul,' while his lips 
moved and I believe he was trying to join. It was a beau- 
tiful and blessed scene. When the singing was ended he 
said, ' The Lord bless you all for all your goodness to me,' 
and then fell asleep. Toward noon he waked and said, 
laughingly, ' I thought I was passing away, but now I feel 
as bright as a button.' In the evening, Cousin Edward 
Bosworth came in and, standing at the foot of the bed, 
made a beautiful prayer. A moment later, the Doctor 
said, * It is better in Heaven,' for he was gone. He went 
so gently that I could not believe that he had left us." 

At the simple funeral service, preceding the interment in 
the Oberlin Cemetery, Dr. Bosworth paid the following 
beautiful tribute: " These many miles of travel have made, 
as it has turned out, a kind of triumphal journey. There 
was a dramatic fitness in his presence at the great Edin- 
burg Conference, making report to that memorable assem- 
blage of almost forty years of service in Japan, and it was 
fit that he should give a final report to the American Board 
which he had served so long and well. After these forty 
years he has crossed his Jordan. . . . He had a good 
soldier's readiness for surprises and suddenness of attack. 
. . . Death confronted him suddenly. He had not known 
until a day or two before the end that he could not live. 
He adjusted himself instantly to the situation. Like a 
good strategist, he had selected an impregnable height as 
his life's view-point, and when Death suddenly appeared on 
the field, Death was already conquered. To him Death was 
a mere incident in eternal life. . . . 

"It is not so much the things that he did, the honors he 
received, the positions that he held, that constitute the 



LAST YEARS 347 

great features of his life. The spirit that he developed was 
greater than all else. The man, himself, was greater than 
anything that happened to him. That which we shall 
always reverence in the thought of him is the way in which 
he met the elemental facts of life, — duty to others, — his 
God and fellowmen and eternity. He and his family in 
these last days have taken immortality as a matter of 
course. Our household can never fail to be grateful for 
the lasting blessing that has come to us, in this opportunity 
of seeing those who were engaged in the daily practice of 
immortality face death with fearless composure. 

" His great soldier-spirit has gone out into eternity, ready 
for great conquests there. He must have read the opening 
verses of the Fourteenth of John, his favorite chapter, with 
a soldier's sense of following a great Captain into the un- 
seen, ' I go to prepare a place for you.' His spirit, loyal 
and fearless, has already adjusted itself to new conditions 
and is already at work upon some high enterprise. We bid 
him, ' Godspeed' and ' farewell,' for a little while." 

" Then from the dawn it seemed there came, but faint, 
As far removed beyond the limit of the world, 
Like the last echo, born of a great cry, 
Sounds, as of some fair city with one voice, 
Around a King returning from his wars." 



Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: Oct 2005 

PreservationTechnologies 

A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 

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